13 July 2019 | New Scientist | 29Greenland. For almost two years,
we’ve been trying to come up
with a step-by-step solution for
my Berlin studio. And whenever I
work with museums and logistics
teams, I ask them to come up with
a response to the climate.Our readers care about green
footprints, but does everyone?
I was with teenage children in
Ethiopia in January. They knew
all about global warming, they
understood about greenhouse
gases and how it wasn’t really
them, their parents or their
ecology that created this problem.
There is no place left where people
don’t know this. There are deniers
in places like the White House
who deny things because they’re
following other economic or
power priorities.What can artists bring to the
climate debate?
Recently, a far right Danish
politician lost a huge numberof voters and one of the most
prominent members of that
party said, well, it’s all these
climate fools. And immediately,
across the political spectrum,
people picked up on it, saying
“I’m a clown, a fool, a klimatosser”.
If we’re going to re-engineer the
systems of tomorrow, we need
to risk being foolish. Previous
models of success can’t be
applied. The planet simply
can’t host them any longer.
We need to take risks.How has social media affected
your work?
It’s kind of the stone age,
the way people walk through
exhibitions. People walk up to
a piece of art that’s very tangible,
highly emotional, with sounds
and smells and all sorts of things –
and they just bloody look at their
phone! The problem isn’tnecessarily the audience, but
the way institutions over-explain
everything, as though without
a long text people just won’t get
it. And once we are used to that,
that’s how we react: “My God,
there was no text! I had to find
out everything myself!” I say, yes,
art and culture are hard work, not
consumerism. You have to give
something to get something.Does activism consume much of
your working life?
I’m lucky that art can be seen
to be flirting with activism,
and maybe there is a fertilising
relationship there. But that’s one
of the good things about getting
older: you know there are things
that you aren’t good at. I’m very
content just being an artist.But you run a business to
drive social change.
I have a social entrepreneurship
project called Little Sun, which
makes a small, handheld, portable
solar lantern. On one side, it has a
photovoltaic panel, on the other
an LED. It replaces the kerosene or
petroleum lantern that you would
have used previously. Obviously,
sitting with an open-wick
petroleum lantern is both very
unhealthy and very bad for the
climate. It’s also expensive.Is the Little Sun a success?
We’ve done studies on the
impact of the lamp. Say a family
eats dinner, then the girl does
the dishes while the boy does his
homework. Once the girl is done,
she sits down only to find there’s
not enough petroleum left for her
homework. One study showed
that the Little Sun increased the
boy’s homework efficiency by
20 per cent, but increased the
girl’s efficiency by 80 per cent.
So the Little Sun project is
MA incredibly inspiring. ❚
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In his element: Olafur
Eliasson’s Yo u r U nce r ta in
Shadow (below)“ Art and culture
are hard work, not
consumerism. You
have to give something
to get something”Don’t miss
Watch
London Green Film
Festival, at Regent’s
Place from 17 July, is
full of stories of how we
can all treat the planet a
little more kindly. There
is also the promise of
“indulgent vegan dirty
jackfruit”. Exciting times...Visit
Kew Science Festival,
from 20 to 21 July,
offers visitors the latest
botanical science in the
beautiful and biodiverse
setting of the Royal
Botanic Gardens, Kew,
in London. This year’s
theme is “rare and
threatened”.Read
More Things in
the Heavens: How
infrared astronomy is
expanding our view of
the universe by Michael
Werner and Peter
Eisenhardt (Princeton
University Press) tours
the cosmos through the
Spitzer Space Telescope.
ROYA
L^ BOTAN
ICAL^ GAR
DENS
KEWHot under the collar?
Explore our climate futures at New Scientist Live
newscientistlive.com