I of the great challenges today is that nosotros often experience untouched by the problems of others and by global issues like climate alter, fifty-fifty when we could easily do something to assist. Nosotros do not feel strongly enough that nosotros are role of a global customs, part of a larger we. Giving people admission to data most often leaves them feeling overwhelmed and asunder, not empowered and poised for action. This is where fine art can make a difference. Art does non prove people what to do, yet engaging with a good piece of work of art can connect y'all to your senses, body, and mind. It can make the world felt. And this felt feeling may spur thinking, date, and even action.

As an artist I take travelled to many countries around the earth over the past 20 years. On ane twenty-four hours I may stand in front of an audience of global leaders or substitution thoughts with a foreign minister and discuss the structure of an artwork or exhibition with local craftsmen the next. Working every bit an artist has brought me into contact with a wealth of outlooks on the world and introduced me to a vast range of truly differing perceptions, felt ideas, and knowledge. Beingness able to accept part in these local and global exchanges has greatly afflicted the artworks that I make, driving me to create fine art that I hope touches people everywhere.


Most of us know the feeling of beingness moved by a work of fine art, whether information technology is a song, a play, a poem, a novel, a painting, or a spatio-temporal experiment. When we are touched, we are moved; we are transported to a new place that is, nevertheless, strongly rooted in a physical experience, in our bodies. We become aware of a feeling that may not be unfamiliar to united states but which we did not actively focus on earlier. This transformative feel is what art is constantly seeking.

I believe that ane of the major responsibilities of artists – and the thought that artists accept responsibilities may come as a surprise to some – is to aid people not only go to know and empathise something with their minds but also to feel it emotionally and physically. By doing this, art can mitigate the numbing outcome created past the glut of data we are faced with today, and motivate people to turn thinking into doing.

Engaging with art is not simply a lone event. The arts and culture represent one of the few areas in our club where people can come together to share an experience even if they see the world in radically different ways. The important affair is not that we agree near the feel that we share, simply that we consider it worthwhile sharing an experience at all. In art and other forms of cultural expression, disagreement is accustomed and embraced every bit an essential ingredient. In this sense, the community created past arts and culture is potentially a nifty source of inspiration for politicians and activists who piece of work to transcend the polarising populism and stigmatisation of other people, positions, and worldviews that is sadly so owned in public discourse today.

Art also encourages us to cherish intuition, dubiousness, and creativity and to search constantly for new ideas; artists aim to intermission rules and find unorthodox ways of approaching contemporary bug. My friend Ai Weiwei, for example, the great Chinese creative person, is currently making a temporary studio on the island of Lesbos to draw attention to the plight of the millions of migrants trying to enter Europe right now and besides to create a indicate of contact that takes us beyond an us-and-them mentality to a broader idea of what constitutes nosotros. This is 1 way that art tin engage with the world to change the world.

Picayune Sun, a solar energy project and social business organization that I set up in 2012 with engineer Frederik Ottesen, is another instance of what I believe art can do. Lite is so incredibly important to me, and many of my works use light as their primary material. The immaterial qualities of light shape life. Light is life. This is why nosotros started Little Dominicus.

On a applied level, we work to promote solar energy for all – Piddling Sun responds to the demand to develop sustainable, renewable energy past producing and distributing affordable solar-powered lamps and mobile chargers, focusing particularly on reaching regions of the globe that practice not have consistent admission to an electric filigree. At the same time, Piddling Sunday is also about making people feel connected to the lives of others in places that are far away geographically. For those who pick up a Piddling Sunday solar lamp, concord information technology in their hands, and utilize information technology to light their evening, the lamp communicates a feeling of having resources and of being powerful. With Little Sun you tap into the free energy of the sun to power upwardly with solar energy. It takes something that belongs to all of us – the sun – and makes it available to each of the states. This feeling of having personal power is something nosotros can all identify with. Petty Sun creates a customs based around this feeling that spans the globe.

I am convinced that by bringing us together to share and hash out, a work of art can make usa more than tolerant of departure and of ane another. The encounter with art – and with others over art – can help the states place with 1 another, aggrandize our notions of we, and show us that individual appointment in the world has bodily consequences. That's why I hope that in the future, art will be invited to take office in discussions of social, political, and ecological problems even 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 one of the recipients of this year'due south Crystal Awards, presented at the Annual Meeting in Davos. You lot can follow him on Twitter via @olafureliasson