THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

I remember, when we were evacuated from Tokyo during the war, my brother was really unhappy and depressed and really hungry because we did not have very much food.  So I said, ‘OK, let’s make a menu together. What kind of dinner would you like?’ And he said, ‘ice-cream.’  So I said, ‘Good, let’s imagine our ice-cream dinner.’  And we did, and he started to look happy.  So, I realised even then that just through imagining, we can be happy.  So we had our conceptual dinner, and this is maybe my first piece of art.

Yoko Ono in O’Hagan/Observer