PROJECT 120 CHICAGO AND YOKO ONO ANNOUNCE

CONSTRUCTION OF SKY LANDING IN JACKSON PARK

SKY LANDING to be First Permanent Public Art Installation by Yoko Ono
in the Americas, Representing a Lifelong Mission for Peace.
June 12th Ground Healing Ceremony Attended by Yoko Ono
as well as Special Guests and Musicians.
CHICAGO, IL. - June 12, 2015 Project 120 Chicago, a civic public-private partnership with the Chicago Park District,
announced today that SKY LANDING by Yoko Ono is being installed in the Garden of the Phoenix located in Jackson Park.
The installation harnesses the power of a pivotal two-acre site at the northern portion of the Wooded Island, the
centerpiece of Jackson Park designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and the site of the 1893 Worlds Columbian Exposition.

Rendering of the Garden of the Phoenix located in Jackson Park, Chicago with SKY LANDING (circled) and the
New Phoenix Pavilion (proposed) and Museum of Science and Industry.

On March 31, 1893, the U.S. and Japan dedicated a Phoenix that took the form of a pavilion on that site, which they intended
to be a symbol of their relationship and would become a permanent place to teach the world about Japan. The Phoenix
Pavilion was designed to showcase for the first time in America the greatest achievements of Japans artistic heritage. For
the millions of visitors to the Exposition, including Frank Lloyd Wright, the pavilion and the canon of Japanese art that it
contained would begin to transform the worlds understanding and appreciation of Japan and its people.

The Phoenix Pavilion (1893-1946) located on the Wooded Island was a gift from Japan to the City of Chicago
following the 1893 Worlds Columbian Exposition. Today, it is being prepared for SKY LANDING, which will take
shape on the site beginning June 12, 2015 with the Ground Healing Ceremony and open to the public with a new
landscape and sculpture installation by Yoko Ono on June 12, 2016.

For over 120 years, the site has endured the highs and lows of U.S.-Japan relations, and has become a place to learn about
each other and ourselves, says Robert Karr, Jr., President of Project 120 Chicago. SKY LANDING invites us to this historic
site and to think about our place in the universal context of the past, present and future. The symbolic forms and landscape
integration inspires us to be mindful that collectively we can create a more peaceful and prosperous global future.
Approval for the Phoenix Pavilion to be located on the Wooded Island was provided by Frederick Law Olmsted and
Daniel H. Burnham in February 1892. Following that approval, the Chicago Park District entered into a historic and
enduring agreement with the Japanese Commission to the Worlds Columbian Exposition whereby, Japan promised to
gift the Phoenix Pavilion to Chicago following the Exposition, and Chicago agreed to maintain the site as a place to learn
about Japan and experience Japanese culture.

Michael Kelly, Chicago Park District General Superintendent & CEO, explains that the City of Chicago was honored
to receive such a gift from Japan at the time of the Worlds Columbian Exposition. Understanding our past and our
relationship today as global partners, we are privileged that the site, with the addition of SKY LANDING by Yoko Ono, will
teach and inspire us and future generations who visit the Garden of the Phoenix.

Visit www.gardenofthephoenix.org for more information.

SKY LANDING by Yoko Ono

Set to be open to the public in June 2016, SKY LANDING will be Yoko Onos first permanent public art work in the Americas. It
is a marker of her place as an artist of profound international influence and of her lifelong mission for world peace.
As a leading artist and activist, Yoko Ono has spent decades bridging the relationships between the East and the West. Ms.
Ono has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the prestigious Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the
Venice Biennale in 2009. Ms. Onos work includes successful projects such as IMAGINE PEACE TOWER in Reykjavik, Iceland.
The idea for a site-specific piece emerged from Yoko Onos initial visit to the site during the cherry blossom tree
installation in 2013. I recall being immediately connected to the powerful site and feeling the tension between the sky
and the ground, explains Yoko Ono. She already had a very special connection to the city of Chicago. When she first
visited in the 1970s, she stayed at a hotel overlooking Lake Michigan and later went back home to New York where she
began to compose her hit song Walking on Thin Ice.
The yet-to-be-revealed installation brings her personal sense of hopefulness to the public realm and the intention is that
visitors will feel a communal connection to Earth and Sky when experiencing the work. I wanted the Sky to land here, to
cool it, and make it well again, remarked Ono when asked about the inspiration for her piece named, SKY LANDING.
SKY LANDING will become a place of congregation and contemplation and will be installed in harmony within the revitalized
landscape of Jackson Park. Yoko Onos artistic contribution includes sculpture and landscape representing a legacy of
Eastern and Western unity. At the same time, this work contributes to Chicagos South Side cultural renaissance and the
resurgence of art, music, and cultural programs in Jackson Park, in parallel with park landscape and habitat restoration.

Visit www. project120chicago.org/jackson-park-projects/p2-skylanding for more information.

SKY LANDING GROUND HEALING CEREMONY JUNE 12, 2015

With support from the City of Chicago, Chicago Park District, Project 120 Chicago and The Garden of the Phoenix Foundation,
SKY LANDING construction commences with a ground healing ceremony on June 12, 2015. Located on the footprint of the
original site of the historic Phoenix Pavilion on the Wooded Island in Jackson Park, which burned to the ground in 1946. This
installation marks a continuity of this site as a place of intercultural harmony and its renewal as a place of peace.
The ceremony led by Yoko Ono will open with a performance by Tatsu Aoki and the Miyumi Project featuring Tsukasa
Taiko, followed by opening remarks from Robert Karr, Jr., President of Project 120 Chicago.
Special guest speakers include:

 Michael Moskow, Vice Chair and Distinguished Fellow, Global Economy, The Chicago Council on Global Affairs; and
Chairman of the Japan America Society of Chicago
Toshiyuki Iwado, Consul General of Japan at Chicago.
Michael Kelly, General Superintendent & CEO, Chicago Park District
Derek R. B. Douglas, Vice President for Civic Engagement, The University of Chicago.
Other special guest speakers to be announced.
## End of Release

ABOUT PROJECT 120 CHICAGO

Project 120 Chicago is a not-for-profit 501(c)3 partnering with the Chicago Park District on planning and projects for
Jackson and Washington Parks to revitalize these nationally significant, complex historic urban parks.
The Project 120 Chicago and Chicago Park District collaboration includes developing, organizing and deploying
resources, including financial capital and expertise, to design, construct, and develop the parks in accordance with a
holistic framework plan and projects.
This collaboration began in 2012 with the development and implementation of plans to revitalize the Garden of the
Phoenix on the Wooded Island in Jackson Park for the 120th Anniversary of the dedication of the Phoenix Pavilion, which
was a gift by Japan to the City of Chicago following the 1893 Worlds Columbian Exposition. Their work quickly expanded
to include plans for Jackson Park, then Washington Park.
Since 2012, an inter-disciplinary national team of experts, landscape architects, artists, architects, ecologists, policy
makers, historians and engineers, have each contributed to the development and implementation of holistic framework
plans to revitalize these historic parks for the 21st century.
Project 120 Chicago, with the support and collaboration of The Jackson Park Advisory Council, has been diligently
responsible and methodical at every step of the way, engaging the community in a ground-up planning process, noted
Robert Rejman, Director of Chicago Park District.
Project 120 Chicagos design and program leadership includes Robert Karr, Jr., President, Project 120 Chicago; Susan KoppMoskow, Executive Vice President, Project 120; Leif Selkregg, Project 120 Chicago Board Member; Robert Rejman, Director
at Chicago Park District; Patricia ODonnell, Landscape Architect and Principal at Heritage Landscapes and Frederik Law
Olmsted expert; Sonia Cooke, President of The Garden of the Phoenix Foundation; Nora Halpern, Principal at NRH Arts;
Kulapat Yantrasast, architect and creative director at wHY; and Larry Booth, Architect and Principal of Booth Hansen.

Visit www.project120chicago.org for more information.

ABOUT CHICAGO PARK DISTRICT

The Chicago Park District is the 2014 Gold Medal Award winner, recognized for excellence in park and recreation
management across the nation. For more information about the Chicago Park Districts more than 8,300 acres of
parkland, 585 parks, 26 miles of lakefront, 12 museums, two world-class conservatories, 16 historic lagoons, 10 bird and
wildlife gardens, thousands of special events, sports and entertaining programs, please visit www.chicagoparkdistrict.
com or contact the Chicago Park District at 312/742.PLAY or 312/747.2001 (TTY).

ABOUT YOKO ONO

Artist Yoko Ono was born in Japan in 1933 and moved to the West Coast of the United States at the age of two, and back
to Japan shortly before the outbreak of war in 1941. Onos transcontinental moves as a toddler would be just the first of
a many between east and west, in a life traversing oceans: literal, familial, and artistic. She is a true global citizen whose
work and life celebrate commonalities that make all of us one. Ono has spent more than five decades breaking down
barriers in the visual and performance arts, as well as in music, film and the written word. Her retrospective, titled Yoko
Ono: One Woman Show, 19601971, opened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City on May 17, 2015.

MEDIA CONTACTS
Project 120 Chicago
John Patrick: ABOVE THE FOLD 646-709-5510 jp@abovethe-fold.com
Please contact for press/media access to the Ground Healing Ceremony.
Chicago Park District
Jessica Maxey Faulkner: Director of Communications 312-742-4786 Jessica.Faulkner@chicagoparkdistrict.com