Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson is known for his large installations, including The Weather Project, an indoor sun shrouded in mist, at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall in 2003. After attending the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen from 1989 to 1995, he established a studio in Berlin, where he now lives. In 2003, Eliasson represented Denmark at the 50th Venice Biennale and his projects include waterfalls in New York, green rivers in various cities and a “rainbow panorama” in Aarhus. Tree of Codes, a 15-dancer performance co-created with Wayne McGregor and Jamie xx, based on a book by Jonathan Safran Foer, will be at Sadler’s Wells, London EC1 from 4 to 11 March.
1 | Film
An Inconvenient Sequel
The original was so important for raising consciousness about climate change in the broader public, I hope deeply that the sequel will be able to do the same. It could not come at a more critical moment. Generally, though, I ask myself how a film can truly inspire action on climate change. Even though I admire films such as An Inconvenient Truth, and the recent film by Leonardo DiCaprio, Before the Flood, for their ambition, I feel that the format may not fully succeed in motivating its audience. I realise, of course, that I myself don’t have an adequate answer to this problem. It is a question I wrestle with every day and that I am obsessed with: how can we motivate change?
2 | Television
HyperNormalisation
I’ve followed the work of Adam Curtis for a while now, from The Century of the Self to The Power of Nightmares and All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, and it is always a pleasure to see how he combines disparate soundtracks and images with piercing analysis. HyperNormalisation tells a very complex story of recent history – the development of the current global order of governments, financial systems and tech corporations – giving the viewer the sense of an overview, as if we could pierce the confusion of the present to see clear structures at work. It is reassuring to know that someone like Curtis is able to work in the popular medium of television, with access to the BBC archives, and that he reaches so many people with a message that is quite radical.
3 | Audiobook
The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis
The significance of the studies at the heart of Lewis’s narrative – about [Daniel] Kahneman and [Amos] Tversky’s research into how we make decisions – cannot be overestimated. As someone who is ever more interested in policy-making and the role that culture plays in motivating action in the world, I am finding this book intensely interesting. While it is sometimes technical, it is always entertaining.
4 | Global development
SDGs
The UN has put together 17 sustainable development goals, or SDGs, from “zero hunger” to “quality education” to “reduced inequalities”. I believe everyone should know them by heart. Ever since I began my Little Sun project to create solar-powered lamps for areas of the world without consistent access to electricity, I have become more and more involved with international efforts to improve conditions around the world. I am mostly working towards expanding energy access to some of the 1.4 billion people without electricity.
5 | Nonfiction
Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit
Although I have been following the writing of Rebecca Solnit for a number of years already, I have been pleased to see how she has gained such prominence as a political commentator in recent months. Her social media presence is a committed extension of her literary and intellectual output and I think a perfect example of how you can use these new outlets positively to reach an audience directly and to produce an expanded community.
6 | Music
Ethiopian jazz poetry
This blends fantastic Ethiopian jazz, experimental poetry and electronic music. The lyrics or lines of poetry make subtle political statements. In 2014, the Institut für Raumexperimente, the experimental school I ran for five years from my studio in Berlin, organised an event that brought together poets and musicians from Ethiopia, Germany and the US: A-B-A-B-A: from hear to here. I like the fact that the music scene hosts and explores the question of identity in a society under pressure. I think music is capable of helping us to articulate our sense of self and to give us a feeling of belonging and of being grounded in a community. I also love the potential of improvisation, not just for creating new sounds, but also in how the audience receives it, dancing or listening attentively.
7 | Sport
Archery
I practise archery in my studio (I have a fairly large office with a target at one end) as a kind of meditation. When I am working, I sometimes reach a moment of – well, maybe not indecision, but perhaps non-clarity. In moments like that, I often ask the bow. The bow reflects a certain inner emotional state. So if I stop being able to listen to my intuition, I ask the bow to bypass my brain and I let the bow be the channel to allow my feelings to express myself. Of course, the bow does not actually really think, but it helps me to move from thinking to doing. Besides that, it is good for strengthening my shoulders and back, my posture and my sense of focus.
