1 of the great challenges today is that we oft feel untouched past the problems of others and by global issues like climate alter, even when we could easily exercise something to help. We practice not experience strongly plenty that we are part of a global community, part of a larger nosotros. Giving people access to data nearly often leaves them feeling overwhelmed and disconnected, not empowered and poised for action. This is where art can brand a difference. Art does non testify people what to practice, even so engaging with a skillful work of art can connect y'all to your senses, body, and mind. It can brand the world felt. And this felt feeling may spur thinking, engagement, and even activeness.

Every bit an artist I have 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 government minister and discuss 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 earth and introduced me to a vast range of truly differing perceptions, felt ideas, and cognition. Being able to have function in these local and global exchanges has profoundly afflicted 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 past 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, nevertheless, strongly rooted in a concrete experience, in our bodies. We become aware of a feeling that may not exist unfamiliar to u.s.a. just which we did not actively focus on before. This transformative experience is what art is constantly seeking.

I believe that 1 of the major responsibilities of artists – and the idea that artists accept responsibilities may come equally a surprise to some – is to help people non but get to know and sympathise something with their minds but also to feel it emotionally and physically. By doing this, art can mitigate the numbing effect created by the overabundance of data we are faced with today, and motivate people to plow thinking into doing.

Engaging with art is not simply a alone upshot. 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 come across the globe in radically unlike ways. The important thing is not that we agree about the experience that we share, only that we consider it worthwhile sharing an experience at all. In art and other forms of cultural expression, disagreement is accustomed and embraced equally an essential ingredient. In this sense, the community created by arts and culture is potentially a smashing 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 soapbox today.

Fine art also encourages us to cherish intuition, uncertainty, and inventiveness and to search constantly for new ideas; artists aim to break rules and discover unorthodox ways of approaching 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 too to create a point of contact that takes us beyond an us-and-them mentality to a broader idea of what constitutes we. This is one style that art can engage with the globe to change the world.

Little Sun, a solar energy project and social business that I ready in 2012 with engineer Frederik Ottesen, is another example of what I believe fine art can do. Light is then incredibly important to me, and many of my works use light as their primary material. The immaterial qualities of light shape life. Light is life. This is why we started Little Sun.

On a practical level, we 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 especially on reaching regions of the world that do not have consistent access to an electric grid. At the aforementioned time, Trivial Sun is likewise most making people experience connected to the lives of others in places that are far away geographically. For those who pick upwardly a Petty Sun solar lamp, hold it in their hands, and use it to light their evening, the lamp communicates a feeling of having resources and of existence powerful. With Niggling Dominicus you tap into the energy of the dominicus to ability upwards with solar energy. It takes something that belongs to all of u.s. – the lord's day – and makes information technology available to each of us. This feeling of having personal power is something we can all identify with. Piffling Sunday creates a community based around this feeling that spans the globe.

I am convinced that by bringing the states together to share and discuss, a piece of work of fine art tin can make us more tolerant of departure and of one another. The encounter with art – and with others over fine art – tin help us identify with 1 another, expand our notions of we, and show united states that private date in the globe has actual consequences. That's why I hope that in the future, art will be invited to have part in discussions of social, political, and ecological issues fifty-fifty more than than it is currently and that artists will exist included when leaders at all levels, from the local to the global, consider solutions to the challenges that face us in the world today.

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