The Department of Design, the School of Design and the whole community of colleagues of Politecnico di Milano is shocked and saddened by this unexpected death and we offer our sincere condolences to Mika’s family and close friends.
Mika ‘Lumi’ Tuomola moved to a tenured Professorship position at Politecnico di Milano in Autumn 2015 after a rich academic life held in Aalto University in Helsinki where he also was a student of the first intake for the MA in New Media program when it was launched in 1994.
He founded the Crucible Studio, one of the department’s research groups, which he led between 2001 and Summer 2015 where he hosted some of our Politecnico’s PhD students. During those years Mika led Crucible in numerous collaborative projects and productions, fueled by his joyful and untiring energy and enthusiasm. He visited our Design School the first time in 2013 to hold a workshop for our Master students in Communication Design and from this first contact, he started thinking about a possible future in Milan. He arrived on Monday 14th September 2015 and here in these months he shared his passions, teaching and researching on generative/interactive storytelling and participatory drama in new media.
To cite his colleagues in Helsinki, “Mika was a pioneer of his field, a passionate artist researcher, a much loved teacher and a highly intelligent and cultured colleague”, in Milan he had started a new life, new friendships, new researches.
He will be sorely missed by all of us who had the pleasure to meet him and work with him.