One of the bang-up challenges today is that we oftentimes feel untouched by the problems of others and by global issues similar climatic change, even when nosotros could easily do something to assistance. We do not feel strongly plenty that nosotros are part of a global community, role of a larger we. Giving people access to data most often leaves them feeling overwhelmed and disconnected, not empowered and poised for activity. This is where fine art can make a departure. Art does not bear witness people what to exercise, even so engaging with a skilful work of fine art can connect you to your senses, body, and mind. Information technology tin can brand the world felt. And this felt feeling may spur thinking, engagement, and even action.

As an artist I have travelled to many countries effectually the world over the by 20 years. On one day I may stand up in front of an audition of global leaders or exchange thoughts with a foreign minister and hash out 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 globe and introduced me to a vast range of truly differing perceptions, felt ideas, and knowledge. Existence 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 hope touches people everywhere.


About of usa know the feeling of beingness moved by a piece of work of art, whether it is a vocal, 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 identify that is, even so, strongly rooted in a physical experience, in our bodies. We go enlightened of a feeling that may not 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 thought that artists have responsibilities may come as a surprise to some – is to help people not merely become to know and understand something with their minds merely too to feel information technology emotionally and physically. Past doing this, fine art can mitigate the numbing effect created past the glut of information we are faced with today, and motivate people to plow thinking into doing.

Engaging with fine art is not merely a solitary event. The arts and culture represent one of the few areas in our society where people can come together to share an feel even if they meet the world in radically unlike ways. The important thing is not that we agree about the feel that nosotros share, but that we consider it worthwhile sharing an experience at all. In art and other forms of cultural expression, disagreement is accepted and embraced as an essential ingredient. In this sense, the community created by arts and culture is potentially a great 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 soapbox today.

Art also encourages us to cherish intuition, uncertainty, and creativity and to search constantly for new ideas; artists aim to pause rules and notice unorthodox ways of approaching contemporary issues. My friend Ai Weiwei, for example, the great Chinese artist, is currently making a temporary studio on the isle of Lesbos to draw attention to the plight of the millions of migrants trying to enter Europe correct now and also to create a signal of contact that takes us across an u.s.-and-them mentality to a broader thought of what constitutes we. This is one way that art tin engage with the world to change the earth.

Little Lord's day, a solar energy project and social business that I gear up up in 2012 with engineer Frederik Ottesen, is another instance of what I believe art can do. Light is so incredibly important to me, and many of my works use light equally their primary material. The immaterial qualities of light shape life. Low-cal is life. This is why nosotros started Footling Sun.

On a applied level, nosotros work to promote solar free energy for all – Piddling Sun responds to the need to develop sustainable, renewable free energy by producing and distributing affordable solar-powered lamps and mobile chargers, focusing particularly on reaching regions of the world that do not accept consistent admission to an electric grid. At the aforementioned time, Fiddling Sun 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 Lilliputian Sunday solar lamp, hold it in their hands, and utilise it to calorie-free their evening, the lamp communicates a feeling of having resources and of being powerful. With Fiddling Sun y'all tap into the energy of the lord's day to power up with solar energy. It takes something that belongs to all of the states – the lord's day – and makes it available to each of us. This feeling of having personal ability is something nosotros tin all identify with. Lilliputian Sun creates a community based around this feeling that spans the globe.

I am convinced that past bringing us together to share and discuss, a work of art can make us more tolerant of deviation and of one some other. The encounter with art – and with others over art – can help the states place with one another, expand our notions of we, and testify u.s. that individual engagement in the world has actual consequences. That's why I hope that in the future, fine art will be invited to take part in discussions of social, political, and ecological issues fifty-fifty more than it 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 usa in the world today.

Olafur Eliasson is one of the recipients of this yr's Crystal Awards, presented at the Annual Coming together in Davos. Yous can follow him on Twitter via @olafureliasson