Kate Just, A Sign of the Times: A knitted translation of Yoko Ono, Imagine Peace billboard, 2022, Dalston Junction, London (2026)
Hand knitted wool and acrylic yarn, timber, canvas
41 x 56 x 2.5 cm

A billboard by artist, musician and activist Yoko Ono bearing the texts “IMAGINE PEACE” and in smaller font “love, yoko” was installed outside Dalston Junction Station in London in 2022. The billboard is one in a global IMAGINE PEACE art project by Yoko Ono comprised of billboards, posters, tweets, advertisements and light projections featuring this text. Her IMAGINE PEACE signs have appeared in over 24 languages all around the world, including Seoul, Melbourne, London and Las Vegas.

The IMAGINE PEACE concept was born from Yoko Ono and John Lennon’s collaborative performance work as peace activists in 1969 when they staged nonviolent protests against war from their bed – titled “bed-ins”. Their second bed-in performance led to the couple’s conceptual Plastic Ono Band recording of ‘Give Peace a Chance’ and later, Lennon wrote ‘Imagine’. Almost 40 years later, in 2007, Ono installed an IMAGINE PEACE tower of light on Viðey Island off the coast of Reykjavík, Iceland to honour John and their previous peace efforts and create her own declarative public artworks.

Many of Ono’s IMAGINE PEACE signs are set high amongst skyscrapers and imposing cityscapes. This installation in Dalston Junction was smaller and cosier; the billboard seamlessly blends in to the urban landscape at walking and driving height. Simply set against a blue wall, and facing crowds of commuters arriving and leaving the station, the sign reminds us (in Yoko’s words): “Imagining is something that we can all do, even when we have different opinions about how to get there.”