The artist offers her artwork “as a learning tool for international journalism” in the context of the European Journalism Training Association (EJTA) hosted by the Erich Brost Institute for International Journalism at the Technical Universitaet Dortmund in Dortmund, Germany

New York, Dortmund, October 2019. Yoko Ono offers her Participatory Artwork, Add Color (Refugee Boat), “as a learning tool for international journalism” to TU Dortmund University, Germany.
Prof. Dr. Susanne Fengler, Academic Director of the Erich Brost Institute for International Journalism (EBI) at TU Dortmund University, thanks Yoko Ono for this “gift to international journalism education. Your participatory artwork leads our journalism students through an artistic avenue to comprehend one of the most challenging matters of this century – migration and refuge”.
The artwork will be on display in the Dortmunder U from 18 October 2019, until 17 November 2019, and will be opened on the occasion of the annual conference of the European Journalism Training Association (EJTA). The conference will bring together around 90 journalism educators from 30 European and African countries to discuss the coverage of migration and refugees in different journalism cultures and media systems, and from diverse perspectives.

Yoko Ono, one of the best-known contemporary artists, is a multimedia artist working in performance, instruction, film, installation, music, and writing. A forerunner in conceptual art involving collaboration, audience participation, and social activism since the early 1960s, Yoko Ono challenges viewers’ understanding of art and the world around them. She is known as an activist for peace as well as for gender equality and environmental sustainability.

Yoko Ono has been preoccupied with the suffering of people taking flight from wars and oppression. She has done a number of major works that reference this plight, including FREIGHT TRAIN (1999), first done at the Schlossplatz in Berlin; ADD COLOR (REFUGEE BOAT) (1960/2016), first done at the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki; INVISIBLE PEOPLE (2009-2017), first done at the Hotel Excelsior in the Lido, Venice as part of OPEN 20. Each work is different, but with the same basic idea.

200 guests are expected to attend the opening of the participatory artwork on 17 October 2019 at the Dortmunder U. In attendance will be all EJTA participants, faculty and students of TU Dortmund University, TU Dortmund University’s Institute of Journalism, the EBI, members of the NGO Africa Positive, representatives of the cultural and public life in Dortmund, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the federal government, friends and supporters of TU Dortmund University, funding partners and the media.

The participatory artwork, Yoko Ono: Add Color (Refugee Boat), will be open to the public - free of charge - from Friday, 18 October 2019 until Sunday, 17 November 2019, at the Dortmunder U, Leonie-Reygers-Terrasse, 44137 Dortmund (in the container in front of the U) during the regular Opening Hours of the Dortmunder U: Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday and on holidays: 11:00-18:00, Thursday and Friday: 11:00-20:00