I'm lucky enough to be tagging along with my wife in Davos, Switzerland this week as she covers the World Economic Forum for TIME Magazine. One of the most interesting people I've met so far is Michael Haefliger, a Juliard-trained violinist who now curates the Lucerne Music Festival in Switzerland. Recently, he's taken an interest in putting art to social use with a project he calls Ark Nova. 

Ark Nova is an inflatable music hall designed by Japanese Architect Arata Isozaki and modeled after Anish Kapoor's inflatable sculpture, "Leviathan" (below). Michael wants to tour the tsunami-affected region of Japan putting on free orchestral musical performances inside the inflated hall. You can watch a video of his vision here.

One question that Michael has been getting as he presents his idea publicly is whether resources are best used on such projects in a country that is still rebuilding? Such criticisms pose a larger question: is art important in helping people recover from disaster?

Often times, art is thought of as a nice extra, as non-essential. When education budgets get tight, arts funding is often the first thing cut. In the context of disaster relief, most people think of "essential" services as things like healthcare and housing. But in Michael's vision, art is also an essential human service. When I asked him why it is important that people affected by the tsunami have access to these performances, he replied that music can raise the spirits of those who are suffering. Michael believes that in addition to traditional relief services, people coping with disaster also need hope. 

- JB

The Ark Nova vision:

The exterior of Ark Nova, which would inflate out of the back of a truck, so that it can move around the tsunami-affected area of Japan:

Anish Kapoor's "Leviathan", which inspired Ark Nova: