Enni-Kukka Tuomala MRSS

Enni-Kukka Tuomala is the world’s first Empathy Artist. Her collaborative, multidisciplinary and research-based practice investigates the delicate relationships between empathy, culture, systems and space. Having created artworks around the world from London and Tokyo to New York and Helsinki, her work strives to reimagine socio-cultural norms to bridge the growing divides in our society, both between humans, and humans and non-humans from other species to digital entities like AI, by propelling empathy into the core of the systems and structures that shape our shared human and non-human communities.

At the centre of Tuomala’s practice are sculptural and spatial artworks that imagine new environments for connection, invite interaction and create intimate moments both with oneself and with other humans, as well as other beings, and our natural environment. Tuomala’s artworks explore the spaces in-between us, aiming to materialise the invisible remains of our exchanges, whether through her Empathy Imprints sculpture series, or large-scale site-specific installations such as Is There Space For Empathy?.

Tuomala’s practice is collaborative to its core, built for participation and anchored in an open process of engagement and dialogue through co-creation and experimentation. She has partnered with the likes of the Parliament of Finland to bring empathy into politics, and worked closely with communities around the world as a part of her long-term Campaign for Empathy project. After years of focusing on interpersonal empathy, Tuomala has recently begun exploring empathy between humans and non-humans through her Empathy Ecosystem model and the evolving Forest Empathy body of work.

A graduate of the Royal College of Art, Imperial College London and the University of Oxford, Tuomala has exhibited her work at The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Design Museum, Kettle’s Yard, Somerset House, and The Nunnery Gallery to name a few. In 2021 Tuomala represented Finland at the London Design Biennale with her installation the Empathy Echo Chamber, inviting over 1,000 visitors to share an intimate moment with a stranger.