The concept John Lennon and Yoko Ono promoted from inside a bag in 1969 was Bagism. The performance-art idea hid a person’s physical appearance so audiences would have to respond to what was said rather than to clothing, hair, age, gender, or skin color.
Lennon and Ono presented Bagism publicly at a press conference in Vienna on March 31, 1969, shortly after their Amsterdam Bed-In. They framed the unusual image as a satire of prejudice and stereotyping: if someone was completely enclosed in a bag, conventional visual judgments became impossible. The absurdity was intentional, matching the couple’s use of humor in their peace campaigns.
The pair had already appeared inside a large white bag at London’s Alchemical Wedding event in late 1968. Bagism was also referenced in Lennon’s “The Ballad of John and Yoko” and “Give Peace a Chance.” It is not the same as Dadaism, Situationism, or Fluxus, although it shares performance-art and anti-establishment qualities with those movements.