We have said it before and we say it again. There is a connection between art and sustainability. Art and nature.  And as this article clearly demonstrates …..”artists have unique knowledge and must claim sustainability power”. From the Guardian Sustainable Business newsletter is a report and interview with the artist and renewable energy entrepreneur, Olafur Eliasson, discusses his solar lamp project and the connection between art and sustainability. Also we remind readers that we have a chapter on “Art and Nature: Creatively Connecting Sustainability” in our book “Race for Sustainability” due out next month and ready to order now at: www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/8998  Read More

Elisabeth Braw in theguardian.com (17 September 2013)

Olafur Eliasson’s Little Sun solar lamps on display at at the Tate Modern. Photograph: Merklit Mersha

Icelandic-Danish installation artist Olafur Eliasson has achieved worldwide fame with his weather-related artworks: 2003 blockbuster Weather Project, The glacierhouse effect versus the greenhouse effect, the Cold wind sphere, the New York City waterfalls. But now he is taking his interest in climate into practical action with Little Sun, a project that aims to bring solar lamps to the 1.6 billion people who lack access to electricity. Tens of thousands of lamps have already been distributed in countries like Ethiopia and Uganda.

In an interview with Guardian Sustainable Business, Eliasson says westerners should learn to use more solar power too.

You once created the Eye See You installation for Louis Vuitton, and now your big new thing is solar energy. Is there a connection between art and sustainability?

Art is very good at reconsidering the systems with which we’re doing things. My own rule is that art is about art, but in our society today we’re trying to come to terms with how to understand and live sustainably, and I have confidence in art being one of the fields that show the possibilities of doing this.

When it comes to solutions to global climate issues, do artists have a credibility that business leaders and politicians don’t?

Their motivation for creating a work of art is not to profit at someone else’s expense. As a result, art enjoys credibility and trust. And remember that throughout history, art has combined thinking and doing. After all, art is about taking a vision and turning it into reality. By contrast, many problems on the world stage exist because there’s a huge disconnect between thinking and doing.

You’re moving more into practical action with Little Sun. How are the lamps getting to the people?

Our company is 14-months-old and has produced and delivered 165,000 lamps to date. Our business partners, for example micro-entrepreneurs in Zimbabwe and micro-financed domestic workers in South Africa, have been very successful in delivering the lamps. We compete with kerosene and petroleum, which gives us a benchmark price. We need to be attractive to local users. But we also try to raise the issue about renewable energy. Little Sun isn’t just about the 1.6 billion people who lack access to electricity. It’s about the notion of our shared responsibility for the Earth’s resources. I use it at home myself. It’s not about “us” who have electricity and “them” who don’t.

When we met at the World Economic Forum in Davos, you were wearing a Little Sun around your neck. Do business leaders take you seriously, or do they dismiss you because you’re an artist?

When I’m in Davos and wear the lamp, it’s a very efficient way of starting conversations with people. I went out in the mornings in Davos to charge my Little Sun outside my hotel room and could say, “I just picked up the sun this morning.” When people hear that, they take you seriously. And when I tell them that I started this project together with a solar engineer, I think they’re quite happy that I’m not some hedge fund boss doing it. And there’s another thing, as an artist I’m used to moving in many different circles: with NGOs, with politicians, with business leaders, with people at the bottom and the top of the pyramid. This gives me and other artists, unique knowledge. That creates respect.

You’ve worked with Ethiopia’s sustainability-focused, but rather authoritarian, government on the Little Sun project. Why Ethiopia?

It’s a country where around 80 million people live in relative density without access to energy. It’s also a country whose government is very environmentally committed and thinks big. Right now, we’re working with the government to try to open a factory in Ethiopia where we can produce Little Sun. Obviously, the government likes any business initiative, but particularly ones related to renewable energy, because most Ethiopian households currently use kerosene. Imagine if 80 million people went from using kerosene to using solar power! That’s a whole lot of petroleum that wouldn’t have to be imported to Ethiopia.

You have said you use Little Sun at home. How sustainable are you?

At my studio in Berlin, where we have 80 people working, we organise the way we cook and think about how we buy and eat it. We also have solar heaters, tubes on the roof where water passes through to be heated up by the sun. But it was only after having children that I started taking sustainability into a personal sphere. When I used Little Sun while reading bedtime stories to my daughter, we’d naturally start talking about how the light that naturally illuminates the book is the same sun that was outside in the garden earlier in the day. Like everyone else, I’ve been relatively sloppy, but in the past 10 years I’ve become less sloppy.

Source: www.theguardian.com