One of the great challenges today is that we oft experience untouched by the issues of others and by global problems like climatic change, even when nosotros could easily do something to help. We exercise not feel strongly plenty that we are function of a global community, role 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 evidence people what to do, still engaging with a practiced work of art tin connect you to your senses, body, and mind. It tin can make the world felt. And this felt feeling may spur thinking, appointment, and fifty-fifty action.

Every bit an artist I accept 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 exchange thoughts with a foreign minister and discuss the structure of an artwork or exhibition with local craftsmen the next. Working as an creative person 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. Being able to take role in these local and global exchanges has greatly affected the artworks that I make, driving me to create art that I hope touches people everywhere.


About of us know the feeling of being moved by a work of fine 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; nosotros are transported to a new place that is, nevertheless, strongly rooted in a physical experience, in our bodies. We get enlightened of a feeling that may not be unfamiliar to u.s.a. merely which nosotros 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 take responsibilities may come as a surprise to some – is to help people not only get to know and understand something with their minds just also to feel information technology emotionally and physically. By doing this, art can mitigate the numbing issue 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 alone event. The arts and culture represent i of the few areas in our society where people can come together to share an feel even if they run across the world in radically unlike ways. The important thing is not that nosotros concur virtually the experience that we share, only that we consider it worthwhile sharing an experience at all. In fine art and other forms of cultural expression, disagreement is accustomed and embraced every bit an essential ingredient. In this sense, the community created by arts and civilization is potentially a corking 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 owned in public discourse today.

Art likewise encourages us to cherish intuition, dubiety, and creativity and to search constantly for new ideas; artists aim to break rules and find unorthodox ways of approaching contemporary issues. My friend Ai Weiwei, for example, the great 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 correct now and also to create a indicate of contact that takes united states of america beyond an us-and-them mentality to a broader thought of what constitutes we. This is one way that fine art tin engage with the world to modify the globe.

Little Sun, a solar energy projection and social business that I set in 2012 with engineer Frederik Ottesen, is another example of what I believe art can do. Light is and then incredibly important to me, and many of my works apply low-cal equally their master textile. The immaterial qualities of light shape life. Lite is life. This is why we started Lilliputian Sun.

On a practical level, we work to promote solar energy for all – Little Sun responds to the need to develop sustainable, renewable energy past producing and distributing affordable solar-powered lamps and mobile chargers, focusing especially on reaching regions of the world that practice non have consistent admission to an electrical filigree. At the aforementioned time, Little Sun is as well nearly making people feel continued to the lives of others in places that are far away geographically. For those who selection up a Lilliputian Sun solar lamp, agree it in their hands, and utilise information technology to light their evening, the lamp communicates a feeling of having resources and of existence powerful. With Piffling Sun you tap into the free energy of the sun to power up with solar energy. Information technology takes something that belongs to all of united states of america – the lord's day – and makes it available to each of us. This feeling of having personal power is something we can all identify with. Lilliputian Sun creates a community based around this feeling that spans the globe.

I am convinced that by bringing united states together to share and discuss, a work of fine art can make united states more tolerant of departure and of one another. The meet with art – and with others over art – can help usa place with ane another, expand our notions of we, and evidence u.s. that individual engagement in the earth has bodily consequences. That's why I promise that in the time to come, fine art will be invited to take function in discussions of social, political, and ecological problems even more than information technology 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 confront us in the globe today.

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