EMPATHY ARTIST

I am the world’s first Empathy Artist. My multidisciplinary and research-based practice investigates the relationships between empathy, culture, systems and space. My work seeks to transform empathy from an abstract concept into a tangible and aesthetic experience – a material that can be seen, felt and shaped as a renewable resource to fight the growing global empathy deficit.

Through site-specific installations, public space interventions and participatory projects my work imagines new environments for connection and create intimate moments of being with ourselves, each other, other species and environments to bridge the growing divides in our society, both between humans, and humans and more than humans. 

The Election Artist-project extends my growing body of work and research examining the relationship between empathy and power, work which began with a collaboration with the Parliament of Finland in 2018-19 (Empatia Ele: empathy tools for politics). In January 2025 I launched the new multiyear Empathy Council project with the Finnish Cultural Foundation in the heart of systems and structures for local decision-making in the Kymenlaakso region in Southeastern Finland.

My work is currently exhibited in my first solo show in Finland, Expanding Empathies, at Amos Rex, Helsinki 2 April-31 August 2025 and at the Finnish Forest Museum Lusto 17 May 2024-2034. My works have previously been presented at Tate Liverpool (2022), Royal Geographical Society (2022), Kettle’s Yard (2021), The Design Museum (2021), Somerset House (2021), The Nunnery Gallery (2021), the BBC (2019, 2020) and The Philadelphia Museum of Art (2019-20) to name a few. In 2021 I represented Finland at the London Design Biennale 2021 with the Empathy Echo Chamber installation, inviting over 1,000 visitors to share an intimate moment with a stranger.

I am a graduate of the Royal College of Art, Imperial College London, and the University of Oxford. Born and raised in Finland, I live and work in London. See more of my work on www.ennikukka.com