Geraint Talfan Davies, Chairman of the Institute of Welsh Affairs, writes about how Artes Mundi enriches cultural and educational life of the people of Wales, and helps to establish Wales’ place in the world.

How does a small country put itself on the map? Wales is tiny – only 0.5% of the area of the European Union, a pinprick on the map in world terms. We carry no clout through our wealth, we do not sit at the high table of international affairs. We cannot impress through pomp and circumstance. We can make ourselves known only through our creativity and flair, and by expressing ourselves in distinctive ways. And we are not bad at it.

In the days immediately after Xu Bing won the first Artes Mundi Prize, a message came back quickly to the organisers in Cardiff: “They are talking of little else in Taipei”. It was an early vindication of the way in which this remarkable initiative could carry the name of Cardiff and Wales far beyond our shores.

Xu Bing may not have been a Welsh artist, but Wales had created a distinctive prize in the visual arts – concentrating on the human condition and saying much about ourselves as a nation. And Welsh artists have featured more than once in the choices made by international selectors of impeccable standing.

There is a temptation in these recessionary times to see culture as a luxury, something that may be dispensable. And yet …

It is not the first such initiative to achieve that effect. The launch of the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition in 1983 put the name of Cardiff into the printed programmes of every opera house in the world, as the 350 singers who have taken part since put the Welsh capital into their career notes. The Dylan Thomas Prize is now seeking to do the same thing in the world of literature. Culture is our calling card, and a prized one at that.

There is a temptation in these recessionary times to see culture as a luxury, something that may be dispensable. And yet consider just what the arts and culture do for a society, particularly one that increasingly will have to live by its knowledge and imagination. We will never recover economically without ensuring that future generations are full of confidence and creativity. That simply cannot be achieved without using the arts in all their forms to kindle the imagination of the young, encouraging them to take those lateral leaps, big and small, by which any civilisation advances.

It is in times of global crisis that we need to be most aware of the diversity and fragility of the human condition. We need, more than ever, to be challenged by artists to find an empathy with our neighbours and with distant strangers, to share their joy, feel their pain, or understand their rage. It is in periods of great stress in society that artists are most needed to explain and challenge, or perhaps to ensure that we do not lose our sense of ourselves as individuals, as communities, and as a nation. It is the arts that so often bring us together for the shared experiences that make any society cohere.

Thousands of children and adults marvelled at, or perhaps were puzzled by the work of Artes Mundi’s chosen artists in 2010. They asked questions of the art and of themselves. And Wales will is a richer place for it.