Finland

Empathy Echo Chamber

The term echo chamber has come to exemplify polarisation and isolation in the information age. Finland’s Pavilion challenges this notion, in a moment when we are looking for ways to reconnect with each other and re-enter public life.

Designed by Enni-Kukka Tuomala, the 'Empathy Echo Chamber' is an inflatable installation and a reflective space – both literally and emotionally. The Pavilion is made of a reflective material and inside, visitors are encouraged to reflect on their experiences and perspectives together and respond to each other through empathy. Unlike the echo chamber which only reflects back what we already know and think, the 'Empathy Echo Chamber' is a positive and communal echo chamber of exchange where participants are prompted to step outside themselves to really see and be seen by each other.

Enni-Kukka Tuomala is a Finnish empathy artist and designer based in London. Her vision is to transform empathy from an individual feeling to a collective and radical power for positive social change through public interventions, installations, experiences, processes and tools.

Having created empathy work in Helsinki, London, New York and Tokyo, her collaborative and research-based practice investigates the relationships between empathy, culture, space and systems. Through her work, Tuomala aims to break taboos and challenge social, cultural and behavioural norms in order to remove barriers and bridge the growing divides in our society.

Tuomala has worked with the Finnish Parliament since 2018 to bring empathy into politics, as well as created commissions for the likes of the BBC, Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE, Greater London Authority, Bath University, Bow Arts, LIFT, and Virgin, and exhibited her work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Tuomala has a joint MA and MSc in Global Innovation Design from the Royal College of Art and Imperial College London. She is currently a 2020 Designer-in-Residence at the Design Museum, London and the Open House Artist in Residence 2020–21 at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge.

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Photography: Ed Reeve

Photography: Ed Reeve

Credits

Creator & Designer

Enni-Kukka Tuomala

Producer

Finnish Institute in the UK and Ireland

Partner

Embassy of Finland in London

Supported by

Light Cognitive

2021 Exhibitors

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