One of the peachy challenges today is that we oft feel untouched by the bug of others and past global issues like climate change, even when we could easily practice something to help. We do not feel strongly plenty that nosotros are part of a global community, office of a larger we. Giving people access to information most often leaves them feeling overwhelmed and asunder, not empowered and poised for action. This is where fine art can make a deviation. Art does non show people what to do, yet engaging with a adept work of art can connect you to your senses, torso, and mind. It can make the world felt. And this felt feeling may spur thinking, date, and fifty-fifty action.

As an artist I have travelled to many countries around the earth over the past 20 years. On one day I may stand in front end 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 side by side. 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 knowledge. 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.


About of u.s.a. 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, we are moved; we are transported to a new place that is, all the same, strongly rooted in a physical experience, in our bodies. We become aware of a feeling that may not exist unfamiliar to us just which we did not actively focus on earlier. This transformative experience is what art is constantly seeking.

I believe that ane of the major responsibilities of artists – and the thought that artists have responsibilities may come as a surprise to some – is to aid people non only become to know and understand something with their minds but also to experience it emotionally and physically. Past doing this, art can mitigate the numbing consequence created by the overabundance of data we are faced with today, and motivate people to plough thinking into doing.

Engaging with art is not merely a solitary event. The arts and civilisation represent one of the few areas in our society where people can come together to share an experience even if they see the earth in radically different means. The important thing is not that we agree well-nigh the experience that nosotros share, just that we consider it 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 customs created by arts and civilization 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 owned in public discourse today.

Art also encourages us to cherish intuition, uncertainty, and creativity and to search constantly for new ideas; artists aim to break rules and find unorthodox means of budgeted contemporary issues. My friend Ai Weiwei, for example, the great Chinese creative person, 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 also to create a indicate of contact that takes u.s. across an us-and-them mentality to a broader idea of what constitutes nosotros. This is 1 way that art tin can engage with the world to change the world.

Piffling Sunday, a solar energy project and social business that I prepare up in 2012 with engineer Frederik Ottesen, is another example of what I believe fine art can do. Light is so incredibly important to me, and many of my works apply light as their primary material. The immaterial qualities of light shape life. Calorie-free is life. This is why we started Niggling Sunday.

On a practical level, nosotros 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 peculiarly on reaching regions of the world that do not have consistent access to an electric grid. At the same time, Lilliputian Sun is also about making people feel connected to the lives of others in places that are far away geographically. For those who choice upwards a Little Sun solar lamp, hold it in their easily, and utilize it to light their evening, the lamp communicates a feeling of having resources and of existence powerful. With Little Sun you tap into the free energy of the sun to power upwards with solar energy. It takes something that belongs to all of u.s.a. – the sun – and makes it bachelor to each of us. This feeling of having personal ability is something we can all place with. Little Lord's day 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 art can make us more than tolerant of difference and of 1 another. The encounter with fine art – and with others over art – tin can help us identify with one another, expand our notions of nosotros, and show united states of america that private engagement in the world has actual consequences. That's why I hope that in the future, art will be invited to accept part in discussions of social, political, and ecological issues even 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 united states of america 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