MENDED PETAL is the 13th petal from the artist's installation.

SKYLANDING, a 12-petal lotus in Chicago's Jackson Park that rises from the ashes of the Phoenix Pavilion, which was a gift from Japan to the people of Chicago following the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition and was lost to arson in 1946. In contrast to the smooth petals of SKYLANDING, this work shows signs of repair, symbolically commemorating the ground-healing ceremony held by the artist on June 12, 2015, through which she prepared the lost Phoenix Pavilion site for the new work.

Metaphors of mending and healing are familiar in Ono's art - Mend Piece (1966) invites visitors to sit together at a table and repair pieces of broken cups using string, glue, and tape. Such acts of repair also reference the Japanese tradition of kintsugi, mending broken porcelain with lacquer that has been mixed or dusted with gold.