Oh, hat cant be i have t you must be having a musical reaction to something. And showed them together. And then you went Royal Danish Academy of art, studied there, and then you moved to new york, but it wasnt until you moved back to europe from america where you began to start making art seriously. Was y sort of tied up wir identity that you were a european and you could only work properly when you got back to europe . Yeah. It i was a young artist. I started art school when the berlin wall came down. I was so optimistic, i said, ok. Im done. Why ever stay in art school . Let me just gew york anget it over with, so it was only when i realized, oh, this is actually a little hder. Maybe studying art is not so bad, after all, so i went back, and i realized, hmm, maybe being honest to myself, taking this se,ous, slowing down a b and this is sort of when i actually started, i say, to get more serious. And you are now a worldrenowned artist and particularly famous for your largescale installations, and here at tate modern in london, there is a rettive of some of your major works over the last 25 years. One very striking one, the rainbow, what are you trying to tell people there . One of the very early works of mine is a rainbow. Its called beauty. Itam drizzling water on a and what you see is then the spectral colors, and, of course, if you move a bi you see, oh oh, it is as if is it like fire . Is it a rainbow . And its very engaging to look at, and interestingly, the person anding next to you or over there, obviously, because a drop of water d a color is depending on youeye, the person sees something else, and its just like it is with rainbows. Its just, like, we are having an experience together, and i think s magnificent. But a rainbows ephemeral, isnt it . I mean, is there a message in that . Yeah, but thonidea that i have a pe, very sort of ephemeral, you could say, immaterial experience, so do you standing over there, but itsot the same, and still, we are together, so when i did the work, i was very interested. Could aterialize kind of the optic, too . Because art is often is le, ok. Heres a bronze solid on a pedestal. I can work around it, but the artwork is there. Maybe i could suggest, if i dematerialize the artwork, its the relationship. It is the evaluation. Am i seeing something . What does seeing this mean . Is this real . And therefore, the seeingectself for you, as a tor, becomes much more interesting and a sort of a coproducer. You become an artist, as well, i could argue. There are quite a lot of exhibits you have here. Another very striking one is the moss wall. What are you trying to tell viewers there . And natural sort of experiences w do our senses react to that, and back then when i did the moss wall, it was sort of before the kind of green, vertical gardens, green highris had showed up, and i thought, ay i proposed, well, ecology has an answer to architecture. Maybe we should look to nature for a sort of bsponse to how to buildings, so the moss wall is like, well, why dont . E just build with mo in this case, but, why dont we listen nature in order to come up with solutions for architectural things . And, as we can see in t moss wall, it looks amazing. Are you seriously suggesting peopl say, could live in a house that is has got walls made of moss . Well, the point e like, as a moss wall, you know, its more like a proposal to say, well, instead of, as we know now, a lot of sort of Building Materials are not sustainable, buwhy dont we seek answers to how are we gonna live in the future if not a moss wall . But then, you know, the proposal is, at least maybe ecology has things to offer. We just need to find ways to implement them. Theres a very strong sort of climattheme to a lot of your work. I mean, in the past, weve seen how you had therfalls at Brooklyn Bridge in new york. Youve got a waterfall exhibit here, also, at tate modern, and then you also in the past had the shock tactic of dyeing rivers green in cities, something which youve stopped. Why is climate so important to your work . I mean, i should also mention ice watch, which, of course, you had glaciers that youd shipped in from greenland to the uk. Why is climate so important to you . Im old enough to remeer that there was, like, the distinction between culture and nature, and now we know that nature isnt something t there. Nature has been sort of taken over by humankind, so to speak. Theres no outside. Theres no everythingas been cultivated, ich is what we call the anthropocene, but, as i for many years already had been interested in moss and water and in ephemeralness owith anonymo, it wiously very easy for me to start thinking about, well, can i use my artworks to make explicit what it is that the scientists are talking about, what is it the politicians are talking about, what is the data report thatn is making for us . Because i think for common people, ffit can be incredibly ult to sort of say, well, what can i do when i look at this massive data report . When i read the papers, it just goes like, so i think one of the things i was interested in is simply making tangible what it is that is going on, so the ice watch project, quite frankly, i think, offers the opportunity to look at the ice from greenland and say, oh, this is what they arealking about. This is the ice, and interestingly, s actually very touching, you h, its really cold, and you had to know its ice, right . Its cold, but l, feeling it on your own hand, as banal as it might sound, it is amazing, and then you just realize, oh, this is actually something right in front of me. And what does that do, though, Olafur Eliasso i mean, people are aware of whats going on. Peopw about Climate Change. Are you saying that you actually can get people to translate this kind of awareness and thinking into action, concrete plans . I think embodied knowledge has a more likely chance to empower people to dr ide to change thhavior or change the way they do things. I think its very hard to sort of instigate change if we only are relating to data, if its only disemotionalized information. You o bring an element of emotionalization into it so that we can actuallyay, ok. I have a feeling about it. We shouldnt leave data behind us thats very dangerous, too, as we know, right but all in all, what art can do, it can make things that are seemingly out ofsort of out of touchomehow and make it touchable and make it available in a way where people say, ok. I understand th. This is somehow relating to me. But what does that actually do . Because you have said is all about profitability, the Public Sector is about polism now, and thats irrational, and that just simply leaves youre asking too much of culture, surely, to say that it will change minds, lead to policies which you know, to stop Greenhouse Gas emistions and all the f it. Its too much. No. No, its not. I actu dont think so, but first off, of course, i, as an artist, am just one of many artists, so when i talk, i talk for me, and not for all artists, but what i think is interesting, if you look at civic society, where do we find trust, civic trust . I mean, what dy people actually identth, and where do people say, oh, heres somebody whos actually listening to me . So i think the cultural ctor is a space in which people say, oh, i identify with some of that this book, th theater, this dance this is how i would move people look at a dance, they say, this is me, first of all, incredibly shortterm, right,s about the immediate, theyre always talking down to people you are not good enough. You are not good enough andlete be honest the privctor is actually doing a lot. Its a bit unfr just to say theyre only about profitability, but in the long run, dont see the necess the necessary, radical change in the private secto because profitabilit is pushing against the climate, so the cultural sector as a system, a civic sort of element, i think has a unique chance to givice where people can identify with it is i something we believe in. We push for that, but alone, the culture see. Or cant do it, for s but, i mean, its interesting because raising awareness about Climate Change is one thing, of an example from australia, when in 2017, thencabinet minister Scott Morrison stood in parliament brandishing a piece of coal, saying, support fossil fuels, coal iaustralia. Climate change registers very high in voters priorities. 2018, 2019, you have the hottest summer onecord in australia, but then what happened in elections thr in may . Scott morrison becomes prime minister, doesnt necessarily translate into people voting. I think its fair to say we have a finite pool of worries, right . We can only woy so much. If people are worrying about brexit, if people are worrying about the financial crisis in 2008, we know that the worry pool is full and people do nok of Climate Change as being a major thing to worry, but we are, i think, i think the consciousness about the consequences of the Global Warming is getting so Common Knowledge that we are seeing massing movements now. We have civic movements. We have the Extinction Rebellion being incredibly, interestingly, succeful where they agree to make the world greater again inand all the amazig happening, so i honestly do think that we have we will always have populism, nationalism, different kind of phobias xenophobia, hophobia popping up here and there. These are the headlines, but the greater trends, i think, are moving, not fast enough. The governments are not signing up he 1. 5 degrees that they promised in paris some years ago, but it is moving in the right direction, i feel. Youre a member of the social practice movement, a word whichescribes any art form that involves people and communities in and social interaction, and youve used your art to engage with refugee communities as well as, obviously, as weve been discussing, Climate Change. Do you think, then, that the best art is art which has a purpose . Well, foremost, arts purpose is to be art. I mean, thats it is, right, and art cannot be put behind somebody elses wagon, but if you think abo it, art always was about something in the world. Its not like art at some point was not about anything. Even highly abstract or autonomous, avantgarde idea was about the principle of not being, you know, commodified and to support the notion, well, we need something abstracur society to have a space of agreement or have a space to sort of say, ok. I need a space in which i can just dream for a while until i can articulate what it is i want to say. Theres a debate within the art world, isnt there . I mean, ie you a quote from an american art critic arthur danto. He says, a century ago, beauty was almost unanimously considered the supreme purpose of art and even synonymous with artistic excellence, yet today beauty has come to be vwed as an aestheticrime artists are now chastised by critics if their work seems to aim at beauty. I mean, weve have the aesthetic movement, lets just celebrate beauty. Theres nothing wrong with that. Yes, but art ts sake a hundred years ago was al a reaction to something. It was not just some kind of autonomous, discon dream. It was a reaction to a highly functionalized relationship wher rt was working e church or for the industry, and therefore, art was never in that way out of context. Art was always reflecting the te in which it was made. Nnot commodify an artwork without also implementing or having some impact it, but to say that art is better art when it is disconnected from a discourse or from a debate or something, we should be very careful about that n because we also want to take the basic sort of agency away from the artist and from the artwork itself. To have a work of art essentially is to hold hands with the wld. You have said in the past when you were at the economic for i , a20rt can16 mitigate the numbing effect created by the glut iormation were faced with today and motivate people are you able to measure in any way whether your art has indeed translated thinking into doing . Im so happy i said that. Thats funny. No. You did say that. Thats a quote. And in davos, also, right, but anyway, so, yeah, thats a good question. I actually do think so fundamentally, yes, but we also have to see how do we measure success. I mean, normally success is measured in all these sort of very quantifiable ways, and what we also need to say, well, art is not necessarily always quantifiable. Something you can measure. Not all imd,k ometng like a safe space in which we can have difficult coersations. A museum like the tate, it is a place where you can have conversations you simply cannot have there is something about, where can i exetogetherness with somebody with whom i fundamentallsa y . Ingrg. Di exetogetherness with somebody with whom we would think the parliament would be able to do that, but we see now how they cant even come up with simple things without falling out against each other and excluding each oth, so i am completely certain that as a i dont want to say peace negotiations otd something, but thisn of sharing without having to agree is something that culture lets say culture and art is capable of as part of your thinking, i shou mention at in 2012, you put forward a proposal take a deepreath to celebrate the london olympics, and that idea didnt really take off. It consisted of people across the world inhaling and exhaling on behalf of aerson, a movement, or a cause, and, you know, it didnt get a good reception in t british press. The times described is as hirious and so on. I mean, are you hurt by rejection or when people dont get your ideas . I think at happens. I mean, it happens quite often, actually. I propose something, and then people say, oh, my, this is really a horrible idea, then, so, i mean, if you keep pushing things, you will get rejections thats just how it is and itt mean that i stopped it, and i think its still an amazing idea. Who were alln the head, and maybe in the future, they will bee body, and i will do it at some other time. You sort of register it on a website in a personal kind breath bubble. A wof rkt ke t t paninegotiate it. Rte it didnt actually even find its final shape re we then actually moved on with something else. As an artist who works like i do, i work a lot outside the museums, in public spaces. I work with politicians. Te i even work with pri sectors and so on and so forth, so i need to face the fact that i get a lot of rejection, too. So, talking about the role of art in society, theres always been a lot of collaboration, of course, between art and the world of design and technology, but when it mes to science, do you thi theres a connection between art and science . I mean, als rt einstein said, ad sciences are branches from the same tree, and the french painter Georges Braque said, art is meant to disturb. Science reasres, how do you see the role of art and science . In my artistic practice, i actually use a lot of primarily social scientists. At i have great collabns, and i enjoy, and i learn a lot from science. At the end of the day, you could sort of break it up and say, science is more about how, and art often is more about why t why are doing all s . And science is more like, well, lets break it down. How are we actua doing all of this . But still, both of them are models of the world to some extent, models that haimpact on the world, also, and they are about reflection and understanding the world, hey have things in common, but we should not sort of make them overlap completely. It would functionalize both in the wrong direction. But you yourself, i mean, styoure very much an acti not only an art activist and, you know, part of the socactice movement, as weve discussed. You actually want to help in very tangible ways. Youve very close connections to africa through ethiopia. Youve adopted two chilen from ethiopia, who dont have access to power in any way, and youve set up this notforofit project called little sun. Yes. Ou let me show it tozeinab. See, actually and its funny because art and science and what can i do outside of the conventional comfort zones, see, now, this is r panel, very small one, very good one. Heres an led, and inside, theres a rechargeable battery, so i can turn it on. This means during the day, i can harvth this side energy. I can use that energy to replace petroum and kerosene and maybe stop chopping down the trees, and t night, i have more cleaner, sustainable, affordable light when i want to do my homework, when i want to keep my kiosk opened up ttle bit longer, so light as it is in my work, as well is also about empowering yourself. Its about reflecting on your own life. On one side, itsfu we need light; we simply do need light but its also an emotional thing. Light is also about livelihood. Power is about werment, and to charge yourself is really also about, teell, if i can illumiyself and my own homework, for that matter, i have a life. I can take charge of my own life. Its an uphill struggle, isnt it, to get perple to embrace solar and other forms of renewable energy. There has to be, i believe, in little suns case and theres wonderful other partners doing similar work like us out ins. He socalled rural ar the thing is, there has to be an economic upside to it, too. It has to be cheaper than the petroleum. The investment into this or oncyou actually have it, thats maybe the first step, bu you actually use it, you are not buying petroleum for the next 3 or 4 years. When you look across the european political landscap and you look at Climate Change and how the greens performed very well in the recent European Parliament elections we had the Extinction Rebellion protests here in the United Kingdom do you think this kind of issuebased kind of politics is going to be the politics that were going to see more of . We see now a lot of talk. Theres not a massive legislative change yet. Thereornot a lot of sort of nization of the systems which have been creating the problems that a, so im curious to see if the civic interest might push the politicians. You would like to think that the politicians would go first, but now it doesnt seem to be happening, which means that the civic i mean, the people, as we see around the world need to probably take the lead and then elect different politicians. We had a party at the recent election in denmark whresimply did not have a or a sort of climate account, d d then they suddenly t get elected. It was very interesting. Even their own electorate did not support them anymore. But the speaker of the danish parlment, explaining the loss of 3 seats in the European Parliament to the greens, was he said, that was down to climate fools. And i think a lot of people picked up on that. That was funny. Yes. Im happy to be called a climate fool. Well, the madmen of yesterd, as we know, are the visionaries of tomorrow who said that again . But thing is, here, probably we need a slight more robust change than we would like to acknowledge. The situation is, foolishness, you know, obstructionist gonna be honorable, and, as much as we are trying to reorganizeim trying to reorganize whatever i can do, both in my art, as a person, in my studio but the thing is, we are facing situations where we suddenly now 1. What is it, 11 years degree . It is not matching it is not adding up. So here you are with this big celebration of your work at tate modern. What can we expect from Olafur Eliasson in the future . Well, what is happening, is, of course, now our esent, like hee way we sit and tal, instead of being past, of what we know from the past, instead of being guided by the past, lets say, we are probably now in a situation we have to be guided by the future, so were gonna have to reconsider the way things by having a future imaginary which is gonna be positive and hopeful and say, this is where we go. Were gonna go tre together. Olafur eliasson, thank you very much indeed for coming on hardtalk. Thank you so much. Thank you. 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