One of the not bad challenges today is that we often feel untouched by the problems of others and by global issues similar climatic change, even when nosotros could easily practice something to help. We do not feel strongly enough that we are part of a global community, role of a larger we. Giving people admission to data most often leaves them feeling overwhelmed and disconnected, not empowered and poised for action. This is where art tin make a difference. Fine art does non show people what to practise, yet engaging with a practiced work of fine art can connect you lot to your senses, body, and mind. It can brand the world felt. And this felt feeling may spur thinking, date, and even activity.

As an creative person I have travelled to many countries around the world over the past 20 years. On i day I may stand in front of an audience of global leaders or exchange thoughts with a foreign government minister and discuss the structure of an artwork or exhibition with local craftsmen the next. Working every bit an creative person 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. Beingness able to take office 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.


Well-nigh of united states of america know the feeling of beingness moved by 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, we are moved; we are transported to a new identify that is, nevertheless, strongly rooted in a physical feel, in our bodies. Nosotros become aware of a feeling that may not be unfamiliar to u.s.a. simply which nosotros did not actively focus on earlier. This transformative feel 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 aid people not only get to know and understand something with their minds but as well to feel information technology emotionally and physically. Past doing this, art tin 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 art is not simply a solitary outcome. The arts and culture represent ane of the few areas in our club where people can come up together to share an experience even if they see the earth in radically different ways. The of import thing is non that we agree about the experience that nosotros share, but that we consider information technology worthwhile sharing an experience at all. In art and other forms of cultural expression, disagreement is accustomed and embraced as an essential ingredient. In this sense, the community created by arts and civilisation is potentially a neat 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 and then endemic in public discourse today.

Art also encourages united states to cherish intuition, dubiousness, and inventiveness and to search constantly for new ideas; artists aim to intermission rules and find unorthodox ways of budgeted contemporary issues. My friend Ai Weiwei, for example, the great Chinese artist, 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 also to create a betoken of contact that takes u.s. across an us-and-them mentality to a broader idea of what constitutes we. This is ane way that art tin can engage with the world to alter the world.

Little Sun, a solar energy project and social business organisation that I set up in 2012 with engineer Frederik Ottesen, is some other example of what I believe art can do. Low-cal is so incredibly important to me, and many of my works use light equally their principal material. The immaterial qualities of light shape life. Light is life. This is why we started Footling Sun.

On a practical level, nosotros piece of work to promote solar energy for all – Piffling Sun responds to the need to develop sustainable, renewable free energy by producing and distributing affordable solar-powered lamps and mobile chargers, focusing especially on reaching regions of the world that do not accept consistent access to an electrical grid. At the aforementioned time, Little Dominicus is also about making people feel connected to the lives of others in places that are far away geographically. For those who pick upwardly a Footling Dominicus solar lamp, hold it in their hands, and apply it to light their evening, the lamp communicates a feeling of having resources and of beingness powerful. With Picayune Sun yous tap into the energy of the sun to power up with solar energy. It takes something that belongs to all of united states – the sunday – and makes it available to each of u.s.. This feeling of having personal ability is something nosotros can all identify with. Little Dominicus creates a community based around this feeling that spans the globe.

I am convinced that by bringing us together to share and discuss, a piece of work of fine art tin can make us more tolerant of difference and of one another. The encounter with art – and with others over art – can assist u.s. identify with one another, expand our notions of we, and evidence u.s.a. that private engagement in the world has actual consequences. That'southward why I hope that in the hereafter, fine art will be invited to have part in discussions of social, political, and ecological problems 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 up us in the world today.

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