1 of the not bad challenges today is that we often experience untouched past the issues of others and by global issues similar climate change, even when we could easily do something to assistance. We exercise not experience strongly enough that we are role of a global community, role of a larger nosotros. Giving people access to data nigh often leaves them feeling overwhelmed and disconnected, not empowered and poised for action. This is where art tin brand a divergence. Art does not evidence people what to do, even so engaging with a good work of fine art can connect you to your senses, body, and mind. It tin can make the world felt. And this felt feeling may spur thinking, engagement, and fifty-fifty activeness.

As an creative person I have travelled to many countries around the globe over the by xx years. On one solar day 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 equally an artist has brought me into contact with a wealth of outlooks on the earth and introduced me to a vast range of truly differing perceptions, felt ideas, and knowledge. Being able to accept part in these local and global exchanges has profoundly afflicted the artworks that I brand, driving me to create art that I promise touches people everywhere.


Near of us know the feeling of being moved by a 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; nosotros are transported to a new place that is, all the same, strongly rooted in a physical experience, in our bodies. Nosotros become enlightened of a feeling that may non exist unfamiliar to usa only which we did not actively focus on before. 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 equally a surprise to some – is to help people non simply get to know and empathise something with their minds but also to feel it emotionally and physically. By doing this, fine art can mitigate the numbing effect created past the glut of information 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 order where people can come together to share an experience even if they see the world in radically different ways. The of import matter is not that we agree virtually the experience that we share, simply that nosotros consider it worthwhile sharing an experience at all. In art and other forms of cultural expression, disagreement is accepted and embraced equally an essential ingredient. In this sense, the community created by arts and civilisation 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 and so endemic in public discourse today.

Art also encourages united states to cherish intuition, dubiety, 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 case, the swell 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 right now and besides to create a bespeak of contact that takes u.s.a. beyond an us-and-them mentality to a broader idea of what constitutes we. This is one way that art can engage with the world to modify the world.

Little Sun, a solar energy project and social business concern that I set in 2012 with engineer Frederik Ottesen, is another example of what I believe fine art can practise. Light is and so incredibly important to me, and many of my works use low-cal as their primary material. The immaterial qualities of light shape life. Calorie-free is life. This is why we started Picayune Sunday.

On a applied level, we work to promote solar free energy for all – Little Lord's day 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 accept consistent access to an electrical filigree. At the aforementioned time, Fiddling Sun is as well about making people experience connected to the lives of others in places that are far away geographically. For those who pick upwards a Little Lord's day solar lamp, hold it in their hands, and use information technology to light their evening, the lamp communicates a feeling of having resources and of being powerful. With Little Dominicus y'all tap into the energy of the sun to power upwardly with solar free energy. Information technology takes something that belongs to all of us – the sun – and makes it bachelor to each of us. This feeling of having personal power is something we tin can all identify with. Little Dominicus creates a community based around this feeling that spans the earth.

I am convinced that by bringing us together to share and discuss, a piece of work of art tin brand united states more tolerant of difference and of ane another. The encounter with art – and with others over fine art – can assist united states identify with one some other, expand our notions of we, and show us that individual engagement in the world has actual consequences. That'due south why I hope that in the hereafter, art will be invited to accept part in discussions of social, political, and ecological bug fifty-fifty more than 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 us in the earth today.

Olafur Eliasson is 1 of the recipients of this year's Crystal Awards, presented at the Almanac Meeting in Davos. You can follow him on Twitter via @olafureliasson