DJALCHEMI

Yoko Ono - Odyssey of a cockroach

I was sent an invitation to the press view of this installation — apparently by accident, but they let me in anyway — so I thought I'd write about it. Here's the 'virtual tour' and here are the details of the installation's current showing.

Cockroaches are a strong and resilient species; they will probably outlast us. The installation shows us the world through a cockroach's eyes, though the 'odyssey' is not clearly articulated. I read the installation as a restating and revisiting of Ono's celebrated anti-war statements from a few decades back, which are directly invoked by the 'Imagine-Peace' stamps that we are invited to use on the maps of US and Second World War locations. Not as playful as her early Fluxus work, but more poignant and still, impressively, as humble.