Ane of the great challenges today is that we often feel untouched by the problems of others and by global bug like climatic change, even when we could easily do something to assist. We do not feel strongly enough that we are part of a global community, part of a larger we. Giving people access to data nigh oftentimes leaves them feeling overwhelmed and disconnected, non empowered and poised for activity. This is where fine art tin can brand a difference. Art does non show people what to exercise, nevertheless engaging with a good work of art can connect you to your senses, body, and heed. It can make the earth felt. And this felt feeling may spur thinking, engagement, and fifty-fifty activity.

As an artist I have travelled to many countries around the world over the past 20 years. On one day I may stand in front of an audience of global leaders or substitution thoughts with a foreign minister and discuss the construction of an artwork or exhibition with local craftsmen the next. Working as 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 have part in these local and global exchanges has profoundly affected the artworks that I make, driving me to create art that I promise touches people everywhere.


Most of us know the feeling of existence moved by a piece of work of art, whether it is a song, a play, a poem, a novel, a painting, or a spatio-temporal experiment. When we are touched, nosotros are moved; we are transported to a new place that is, withal, strongly rooted in a physical experience, in our bodies. We go aware of a feeling that may non be unfamiliar to us but which we did not actively focus on earlier. This transformative experience is what art is constantly seeking.

I believe that one of the major responsibilities of artists – and the idea that artists have responsibilities may come every bit a surprise to some – is to help people not only get to know and understand something with their minds just besides to feel it emotionally and physically. By doing this, art tin mitigate the numbing effect created by the glut of information nosotros are faced with today, and motivate people to turn thinking into doing.

Engaging with art is not simply a lone event. The arts and civilization represent one of the few areas in our society where people can come together to share an experience even if they run into the world in radically unlike ways. The of import affair is not that we hold most the experience that we share, but that we consider information technology worthwhile sharing an feel at all. In fine art and other forms of cultural expression, disagreement is accepted and embraced as an essential ingredient. In this sense, the community created past arts and culture is potentially a groovy 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.

Fine art also encourages u.s.a. to cherish intuition, dubiousness, and creativity and to search constantly for new ideas; artists aim to interruption rules and observe unorthodox ways of approaching contemporary issues. My friend Ai Weiwei, for instance, the peachy 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 as well to create a point of contact that takes united states of america beyond an usa-and-them mentality to a broader idea of what constitutes nosotros. This is one fashion that art can appoint with the world to change the earth.

Little Dominicus, a solar energy project and social business that I gear up in 2012 with engineer Frederik Ottesen, is another example of what I believe fine art tin do. Light is so incredibly of import to me, and many of my works apply calorie-free every bit their primary material. The immaterial qualities of light shape life. Low-cal is life. This is why we started Piffling Sun.

On a practical level, we piece of work to promote solar energy for all – Lilliputian Dominicus responds to the demand to develop sustainable, renewable energy by producing and distributing affordable solar-powered lamps and mobile chargers, focusing especially on reaching regions of the world that do not have consistent access to an electrical grid. At the aforementioned time, Picayune Lord's day is also nearly making people feel connected to the lives of others in places that are far away geographically. For those who pick upwardly a Little Lord's day solar lamp, concord it in their hands, and use information technology to light their evening, the lamp communicates a feeling of having resources and of beingness powerful. With Little Sun you tap into the energy of the sun to power up with solar energy. It takes something that belongs to all of usa – the sunday – and makes it available to each of usa. This feeling of having personal ability is something we can all identify with. Petty Sun creates a community based effectually this feeling that spans the globe.

I am convinced that by bringing us together to share and discuss, a work of art can make us more tolerant of difference and of ane another. The encounter with art – and with others over art – tin can aid united states identify with 1 some other, expand our notions of we, and bear witness u.s. that individual appointment in the earth has actual consequences. That'southward why I hope that in the future, art will be invited to take part in discussions of social, political, and ecological issues fifty-fifty more than than information technology is currently and that artists volition be included when leaders at all levels, from the local to the global, consider solutions to the challenges that face us in the earth today.

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