et.al presents a series of monoprints made during Cai Tuomivaara’s 2026 residency at East London Printmakers. Taking clouds as a recurring point of departure, the works use repetition, layering, waiting and chance to consider time, pressure and change — and how we maintain composure while moving through conditions that remain in flux.
et.al presents a body of monoprints made during Cai Tuomivaara’s 2026 residency at East London Printmakers.
The works take clouds as a recurring point of departure. Rather than depicting them directly, Tuomivaara uses their shifting form to think through time, pressure, change and composure. These ideas are developed through the physical demands of printmaking itself: repetition, layering, waiting, transfer, precision and chance.
During the residency, time became measurable in different ways — through the operation of the press, the drying and curing of materials, changes in light and warmth across the studio, and clouds moving past the windows. The works hold some of these different tempos together.
Clouds also make visible forces that cannot themselves be seen. They can be read as a kind of cinema of the wind: continuously registering pressure, direction and change through their own transformation. In this sense, softness is not treated as fragility, but as a capacity to shift and adapt while displaying the forces around it.
This concern with visibility connects to Tuomivaara’s wider practice, which considers how knowledge is formed through bodies, materials and environments, and how making can reveal conditions that are otherwise difficult to name or perceive. Here, softness becomes a form of resistance: responsive without being passive, and capable of holding force to account through the traces it leaves behind.
Made as unique monoprints rather than editions, each work records a set of decisions and conditions that cannot be repeated exactly. Together, they form a collection that asks for time rather than immediate resolution, leaving space for the viewer to look, hesitate and return.
Works presented in et.al were produced during Cai Tuomivaara’s artist residency at East London Printmakers between March and June 2026.
About Cai:
Cai Tuomivaara (she/they) is a researcher-artist working across printmaking, biomaterials, digital media and performative practice. Their work examines how knowledge is produced, shared and withheld across human and non-human systems, with particular interests in posthumanism, fugitive pedagogy and social justice.
Alongside their artistic practice, Tuomivaara has more than a decade of experience in brand and design strategy and has taught postgraduate design and innovation in London and Cambridge since 2019. Their practice moves between material experimentation and critical research, using making as a way to test how bodies, technologies and environments shape what can be known.
Contact: If you have any questions regarding this exhibition, please email programming@stmargaretshouse.org.uk
Venue: The Chapel at St Margaret’s House, 21 Old Ford Road — E2 9PL
Access: We are working to make our Grade II listed building more accessible, but it will take some time. Please note that entry to the Chapel is not step-free. If you require access support (including our portable ramps) and/or access to an accessible toilet, please contact us on 020 8980 2092 or email programming@stmargaretshouse.org.uk so we can arrange this for you.
Dates & Times:
Opening Event: Friday 20th November, 6.30-8.30pm
Exhibition: Thursday 21st November, 1-6pm, Sunday 2nd November, 12-3pm
Tickets for the Opening Event are free, but registration is essential