Do we surround ourselves with the things we already know? Do we seek the company of others whose experiences feel familiar to us? Would we rather stay in our own bubbles than encounter different views and perspectives? Our own bubble can bring temporary safety and comfort, but it can turn into an echo chamber that weakens our ability to face the new and unknown.  

Information and opinions travel faster than ever, demanding immediate interpretations and choices. Algorithms continuously direct us to content that mirrors our own values. The more we seek the familiar and the safe, our biases become rooted. Research shows that polarisation and the global empathy deficit continue to grow. At the same time, the meanings and impacts of empathy are debated. When we isolate ourselves in our own thoughts and experiences, we feel further away from each other than we actually are.  

In Studio Rex, Empathy artist Enni-Kukka Tuomala has created a series of works that invites us to consider our value systems, and our own ways of thinking, feeling and being. At the same time the artworks challenge our perceptions of empathy. Tuomala’s multidisciplinary practice has long examined the relationships between empathy, power, space and systems. By using empathy as the starting point for her artworks, the artist invites us to reach for new perspectives to become aware of the limits of our own echo chambers, to strengthen our relationships with ourselves and each other. 

Enni-Kukka Tuomala: Empathy Echo Chamber, 2020-2021. Images: Augusti Heinonen / Amos Rex

Empathy Echo Chamber 
2020-2021 

TPU, vinyl, PVC, electronics and paper 

The echo chamber – a symbol of loneliness and isolation – is a space where what we already know, think, feel and like is reflected back to us. The Empathy Echo Chamber reimagines isolated and intangible echo chamber as a shared physical space where we are invited to step outside our own experiences to see and be seen by each other. The artwork gives empathy – an abstract emotion – a tangible, material form we can see, feel and inhabit.  

Two strangers are invited to step inside the artwork for an intimate guided experience to complete a series of short empathy exercises together. The shared experience lasts 20 minutes and we recommend it for adults.  

Experience the artwork by joining the queue in Studio Rex or reserving a timeslot in advance for Fridays at amosrex.fi.

Enni-Kukka Tuomala: Expansions I-III (detail), 2025.
Image: Aukusti Heinonen / Amos Rex

Expansions I-III  
2025 

Aluminium, steel, 3D printed ABS and video

Enni-Kukka Tuomala’s new series of sculptures builds on the artist’s years of explorations into interpersonal distance and in-between spaces. The artist is currently investigating connection and disconnection in places where we are meant to encounter each other as equals. She has 3D scanned shared public spaces in the areas surrounding Amos Rex, including waiting rooms, libraries, public transport stations and stops, buses, the metro and the tram, and parks. The final forms of the artworks are based on these scans. In these unique abstract shapes of the unoccupied spaces between us is where the most important invisible exchanges of ideas, emotions or expectations happen – and become what either brings us together or divides us.   

I believe empathy is radical. It is the foundation for all connection, collaboration, communication, and the basis of all strong and equitable relationships. Empathy is proven to increase cooperation, positive behaviours towards strangers, and the environment. Empathy reduces unconscious racial bias as well as conflicts between different groups of people. 

The meaning of empathy has changed since its inception. Originally, empathy was linked to art and nature, and described the experience of projecting oneself into works of art and natural environments. Today empathy is most commonly linked with psychology and used to describe exchanges in perspective-taking between people. At the same time empathy evokes many reactions that come with preconceived notions. Its meaning and effects are debated. Empathy is wrongly interchanged with sympathy and compassion, and its power often bypassed as a soft skill. Instead of addressing the urgent systemic need for empathy, the weight of it is often placed on the shoulders of individuals. We can recognise the importance and need for empathy, but struggle to know how to practice it individually and societally. 

In my art, empathy is the process of trying to understand the experiences and perspectives of others, and at times adopting their emotional states. Can we ever fully understand what someone else thinks, feels or experiences? I believe the radical power lies in the pursuit of a deeper connection – with ourselves, each other, our environments, and other species. 

- Enni-Kukka

How will you practice empathy?

Image: Stella Ojala / Amos Rex

Enni-Kukka Tuomala (b. 1987) is a Finnish empathy artist based in London. Her multidisciplinary and research-based practice investigates the relationships between empathy, power, space and systems. Tuomala seeks to transform empathy from an abstract concept into a tangible and aesthetic experience – a material that can be seen, felt, and shaped. 

Her site-specific installations, public space interventions and participatory projects imagine new environments for connection and create intimate moments of being with ourselves, each other and our surroundings. The new body of work at Amos Rex continues her long-standing examination of the relationship between empathy and power. 

Tuomala has previously collaborated with the Parliament of Finland (Empatia Ele, 2018–2019), creating a series of artworks and a collection of empathy tools for politics in partnership with Members of Parliament. Since 2023, she has worked as the Election Artist, investigating the state of Western democracy, health of electoral systems and the role of empathy in political culture across Finland, the EU, the UK, and the United States. In January 2025 Tuomala launched the new multiyear Empathy Council project with the Finnish Cultural Foundation. 

Enni-Kukka Tuomala’s work has been exhibited at Tate Liverpool, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Design Museum and Somerset House in London, the BBC, and the Finnish Forest Museum Lusto to name a few. In 2021 she represented Finland at the London Design Biennale with her installation Empathy Echo Chamber. Tuomala has a Master of Arts from the Royal College of Art (2018) and the University of Oxford (2010), as well as a Master of Science from Imperial College London (2018).

ennikukka.com