Photo: Nokero (Creative Commons)

Upon Iniative of Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-Director of the Serpentine Gallery, #DLD12 features two panels bridging arts and austainability, ecopreneurship and digital artforms (Art 2.0) in interdisciplinary ways.

PANEL I: Lights on Africa

This art session sets a number of experts and initiatives into dialogue about sustainable development and ecopreneurship in Africa. Driving economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa largely depends on the access to electrical power – an issue that can be resolved.

The discussion includes speakers like Olafur Eliasson, One.org´s Jamie Drummond and Joseph Mucheru, Office Lead East Africa at Google Kenya, and highlights which entrepreneurial spirit is needed, the importance of ecological sustainability, available solar tech-solutions and what the visual arts can contribute.

At this Lights on Africa session, the artist Olafur Eliasson presents Little Sun, a solution-orientated project conflating arts, design, energy and sustainability.

This solar-energy powered lightning-device has been designed to enhance access to light and electricity to the “bottom of the income pyramid” in Africa, which has no access to the electric grid. As a step to improve local infrastructures, Little Sun has been initiated to help enabling a safer, affordable and environmental friendly access to light by providing off-grid-energy as alternative to carbon-emission-heavy petroleum lamps for more than 2.5 million people in Africa, who have less than two dollars a day to make a living and to start their own economies.