Designers in Residence Group Guided Tour

Empathy in the Urban Forest: A Guided Tree Tour | Members and Patrons

Join this guided tour of Kensington and Chelsea to discover the role of nature in urban living.

What to expect

This guided tree tour of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea will explore the urban forest of London through the lens of empathy, responding to this year's Designers in Residence programme theme, Care. On the walk, participants will learn about Enni-Kukka Tuomala’s residency project and examine their own relationship with the trees that surround us.

From a young age, artist and designer Enni-Kukka Tuomala has had an affiliation with the natural world. She grew up in Finland, where 75% of the country is covered by trees (in contrast to the UK, which has only 13% tree cover). Through this residency, Enni’s extensive work on interpersonal empathy has expanded to explore the growing empathy deficit between humans and trees.

Taking place in the urban setting around the Design Museum, which includes Holland Park, the tour will be led by Enni with the borough’s Senior Arboricultural Officer James Burton. It will celebrate the trees of our city.

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Booking information

Adult: £5
Members: £5

Please note there is a capacity of 7 attendants. The event will follow government instructions regarding COVID-19 health and safety including mandatory face covering and social distancing.

The meeting point for this tour is outside the entrance to the Design Museum, by the main doors. The tour will finish up in the North-East corner of Holland Park.

Please note that the tour will require participants to be on foot in Holland Park for two hours, and seating will not be guaranteed at all of the stops on the tour. Participants are advised to dress in comfortable clothing, and to bring a hat, sun cream, and water.

Facilitator

Enni-Kukka Tuomala

Enni-Kukka Tuomala is a Finnish empathy artist and designer. Her work aims to transform empathy from an individual feeling to a collective power for social change through installations, environments, tools and methodologies. Her international and collaborative practice interrogates the relationships between empathy, culture, space and systems. For her residency, Enni is exploring empathy between humans and trees.

Designers in Residence 2020

The Designers in Residence programme at the Design Museum is a core part of the museum's activity, supporting emerging designers, from any discipline, with time and space away from their regular environment to reflect, research and consider new ways of developing their practice.

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Designers in Residence Showcase

Click here to enter the Designers in Residence 2020 Showcase.

Related event

Designing with Care

Join a panel discussion with the 2020 Designers in Residence exploring design’s relationship to care.

Background image by Enni-Kukka Tuomala.