A new exhibit opens Saturday, April 9, at the Springfield Art Museum.
Yoko Ono: Mend piece will be at the museum through July 10.
Sarah Buhr, the Springfield Art Museum’s curator of art, said the artist wanted people to focus on mending with wisdom and love when experiencing the exhibit.
"So, that's the concept of the show and really the idea of communal mending: mending together as an act of healing and as something that, you know, has broader reach if we're doing it together."
Yoko Ono, a peace activist for decades, conceptualized Mend Piece in 1966. The show is based on the ancient Japanese art of Kintsugi, through which artists mend ceramics with gold, Buhr said.
"You highlight the breaks but then can still use the piece," she said. "But here we're using very mundane materials. Instead of gold, it can be anything—and then creating something new from that which is broken."
Mend Piece is a traveling exhibit of the American Federation of Arts, which the Springfield Art Museum booked one of its first exhibits through in 1928.
In the fall of 2019, Buhr received an email that the show was available for travel.
This show is unusual in that museums are given a list of instructions—then they must create and acquire the parts of the exhibit themselves.
Since 2019, the Springfield Art Museum has been planning, gathering supplies, and having tables and shelves built by local artisans.
"We had very explicit instructions on the size of the table and shelves and so we found local woodworkers to build those," said Buhr.
The tables and shelves had to be a certain size and color. Everything is white, so there are no distractions.
And museum staff began purchasing glue, tape, scissors and string—and ceramic cups and saucers, which they then had to break.
"And so that was it's own sort of fun activity, and we opened that up to all of our staff and sort of experimented with the best way to break the china, which turns out for us it was using a hammer and a bucket and wearing protective glasses," Buhr said.
She says it was very cathartic and allowed her to take out her frustrations about what was going on in the world.
Those who come for the exhibit are tasked with "mending" the broken pieces of dishware. They aren’t required to put pieces together in their original form.
An additional educational space includes hands-on activities.
Staying with the theme of healing, the museum has partnered with Burrell Behavioral Health for “Be Well Experience: Brain Health and Creative Expression” on April 14 and June 8 at 6:00 p.m.
The Springfield Symphony Orchestra will present the John Cage Symphony Performance April 16 at 5:00 p.m.
Other events include a Kintsugi workshop and a cleanup of Fassnight Creek and a "Fix-It Fair."
Buhr hopes the exhibit will bring a form of healing to those who experience it.
The exhibit is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and sponsorships from the Melinda J. McDaniel Charitable Trust and Howard C. and Nadia T. Cavner.