Ane of the peachy challenges today is that we often experience untouched by the problems of others and past global bug similar climate alter, even when we could easily do something to help. We exercise non feel strongly enough that we are part of a global community, part of a larger nosotros. Giving people access to information near oftentimes leaves them feeling overwhelmed and disconnected, not empowered and poised for action. This is where fine art can make a difference. Art does not prove people what to do, withal engaging with a good work of fine art can connect you to your senses, torso, and listen. It tin make the world felt. And this felt feeling may spur thinking, appointment, and fifty-fifty action.

As an artist I have travelled to many countries around the globe over the past twenty years. On one twenty-four hour period I may stand in front of an audience of global leaders or exchange thoughts with a foreign government minister and discuss the construction of an artwork or exhibition with local craftsmen the adjacent. Working equally an artist has brought me into contact with a wealth of outlooks on the earth and introduced me to a vast range of truly differing perceptions, felt ideas, and noesis. Being able to take part in these local and global exchanges has greatly affected the artworks that I make, driving me to create art that I hope touches people everywhere.


Most of us know the feeling of existence moved past a work of art, whether it is a song, a play, a verse form, a novel, a painting, or a spatio-temporal experiment. When we are touched, nosotros are moved; we are transported to a new identify that is, nevertheless, strongly rooted in a physical experience, in our bodies. We become aware of a feeling that may not be unfamiliar to u.s. simply which we did not actively focus on earlier. This transformative experience is what art is constantly seeking.

I believe that ane of the major responsibilities of artists – and the idea that artists take responsibilities may come equally a surprise to some – is to assist people not only get to know and sympathize something with their minds only besides to feel it emotionally and physically. By doing this, art can mitigate the numbing event created past the glut of data we are faced with today, and motivate people to plough thinking into doing.

Engaging with art is not simply a lone event. The arts and civilisation correspond one of the few areas in our society where people can come together to share an feel even if they see the world in radically dissimilar ways. The of import thing is non that we hold about the feel that we share, only that we consider information technology worthwhile sharing an feel at all. In art and other forms of cultural expression, disagreement is accepted and embraced equally an essential ingredient. In this sense, the community created by arts and culture is potentially a dandy source of inspiration for politicians and activists who work to transcend the polarising populism and stigmatisation of other people, positions, and worldviews that is sadly so endemic in public discourse today.

Art also encourages us to cherish intuition, uncertainty, and creativity and to search constantly for new ideas; artists aim to break rules and find unorthodox means of approaching contemporary issues. My friend Ai Weiwei, for instance, the bang-up Chinese creative person, is currently making a temporary studio on the island of Lesbos to describe attention to the plight of the millions of migrants trying to enter Europe right now and also to create a point of contact that takes us across an the states-and-them mentality to a broader idea of what constitutes nosotros. This is one way that art tin can engage with the world to modify the world.

Little Lord's day, a solar energy project and social business that I fix in 2012 with engineer Frederik Ottesen, is another example of what I believe art can do. Light is then incredibly important to me, and many of my works employ low-cal as their master material. The immaterial qualities of low-cal shape life. Lite is life. This is why we started Little Lord's day.

On a practical level, we work to promote solar energy for all – Piffling Sun responds to the demand to develop sustainable, renewable energy by producing and distributing affordable solar-powered lamps and mobile chargers, focusing peculiarly on reaching regions of the world that do not have consequent admission to an electrical filigree. At the same fourth dimension, Fiddling Sun is also about making people feel connected to the lives of others in places that are far away geographically. For those who option upwardly a Piffling Sunday solar lamp, hold it in their hands, and employ it to low-cal their evening, the lamp communicates a feeling of having resources and of beingness powerful. With Little Lord's day you tap into the energy of the sun to power up with solar energy. It takes something that belongs to all of us – the sunday – and makes it bachelor to each of u.s.a.. This feeling of having personal power is something we tin can all identify with. Petty Sun creates a community based around this feeling that spans the earth.

I am convinced that past bringing us together to share and discuss, a piece of work of art can make us more than tolerant of difference and of ane another. The run across with art – and with others over art – can assist united states of america identify with 1 another, expand our notions of nosotros, and testify us that individual date in the world has actual consequences. That's why I hope that in the time to come, art volition be invited to take office in discussions of social, political, and ecological bug fifty-fifty more than it is currently and that artists will be included when leaders at all levels, from the local to the global, consider solutions to the challenges that face u.s. in the world today.

Olafur Eliasson is ane of the recipients of this year's Crystal Awards, presented at the Annual Meeting in Davos. You tin can follow him on Twitter via @olafureliasson