One of the great challenges today is that we often feel untouched past the bug of others and past global issues similar climatic change, even when we could easily do something to help. Nosotros do not feel strongly enough that nosotros are part of a global community, part of a larger we. Giving people admission to data nearly often leaves them feeling overwhelmed and disconnected, not empowered and poised for action. This is where art can make a difference. Fine art does not show people what to do, nonetheless engaging with a good work of art can connect yous to your senses, body, and heed. It can brand the world felt. And this felt feeling may spur thinking, engagement, and even action.

Equally an creative person I accept travelled to many countries around the earth over the past xx years. On ane day I may stand in forepart of an audience of global leaders or exchange 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 cognition. Being able to take part in these local and global exchanges has profoundly affected the artworks that I make, driving me to create art that I hope touches people everywhere.


Most of us know the feeling of being 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, we are moved; nosotros are transported to a new place that is, nevertheless, strongly rooted in a physical experience, in our bodies. We go enlightened of a feeling that may not exist unfamiliar to us only which we did not actively focus on before. This transformative experience is what art is constantly seeking.

I believe that 1 of the major responsibilities of artists – and the idea that artists have responsibilities may come equally a surprise to some – is to help people not only get to know and understand something with their minds just as well to experience it emotionally and physically. By doing this, art can mitigate the numbing effect created by the glut of information we are faced with today, and motivate people to plow thinking into doing.

Engaging with art is not simply a lone outcome. The arts and civilization stand for one of the few areas in our club where people tin come together to share an feel even if they run across the world in radically different ways. The important thing is not that we agree virtually the experience that we share, but 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 customs created by arts and culture is potentially a great 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 endemic in public discourse today.

Art besides encourages united states to cherish intuition, dubiety, and inventiveness and to search constantly for new ideas; artists aim to break rules and find unorthodox ways of approaching contemporary problems. My friend Ai Weiwei, for case, the great Chinese artist, 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 as well to create a betoken of contact that takes us beyond an united states-and-them mentality to a broader idea of what constitutes we. This is one way that art can appoint with the world to alter the globe.

Fiddling Dominicus, a solar energy projection and social business that I set up in 2012 with engineer Frederik Ottesen, is some other example of what I believe art can do. Calorie-free is and so incredibly important to me, and many of my works use light as their master fabric. The immaterial qualities of light shape life. Light is life. This is why we started Picayune Sun.

On a practical level, we piece of work to promote solar energy for all – Little Sun responds to the need 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 filigree. At the same time, Little Sun is likewise about making people feel connected to the lives of others in places that are far away geographically. For those who pick up a Piddling Sun solar lamp, agree it in their hands, and utilize information technology to light their evening, the lamp communicates a feeling of having resources and of beingness powerful. With Piddling Sun you tap into the energy of the sunday to power up with solar energy. It takes something that belongs to all of u.s. – the sun – and makes information technology bachelor to each of us. This feeling of having personal ability is something we tin all identify with. Little Lord's day creates a customs based around this feeling that spans the globe.

I am convinced that by bringing u.s. together to share and talk over, a piece of work of fine art tin make us more than tolerant of departure and of i another. The encounter with art – and with others over art – can assistance us identify with ane another, aggrandize our notions of we, and show united states that private engagement in the world has actual consequences. That's why I hope that in the future, art volition be invited to accept part in discussions of social, political, and ecological issues even more than it is currently and that artists will exist included when leaders at all levels, from the local to the global, consider solutions to the challenges that face up us in the earth today.

Olafur Eliasson is one of the recipients of this year'due south Crystal Awards, presented at the Almanac Coming together in Davos. You can follow him on Twitter via @olafureliasson