Creative Bureaucracy Festival Award – Olafur Eliasson

Great public art communicates with power and impact, and Olafur Eliasson is one of the few artists across the globe whose work consistently prompts city councils and institutions to rethink what is possible. Crucially, his work requires partnerships and public authorities willing to take risks and to say ‘yes’. Examples include the Cirkelbroen – the circular bridge over Copenhagen’s Christianshavn Canal. It was the final missing link in making the city’s entire harbour ring accessible to pedestrians and cyclists: a work of art that works, and an infrastructure that inspires. Four monumental waterfalls at various locations along the East River in New York were emblematic – an intervention that no single authority could have conceived on its own. With “Ice Watch”, he brought 80 tonnes of glacier ice from Greenland to Copenhagen’s Town Hall Square and in front of the Panthéon in Paris – right in the middle of COP21. It forced politicians and the public to experience the melting ice and thus enter into a direct, physical encounter with climate change. Public space belongs to everyone, says Eliasson, and it must reflect ethical values and show how we want to live. Each of his major projects poses a question to us – the public – and to the authorities: Do we dare to do this? The prize is awarded to the artist – and to all those authorities who said yes.