Black Lives Matter

Petri Saarikko (b. 1973) is Helsinki-based artist and designer. In his site-specific installations, Saarikko combines social commentary with his work as a designer and his background in new media. His work is highly performative in nature. Saarikko does not shy away from provocation. He often challenges ideas of national identity, artistic authorship or official political discourses by changing their context and thus showing the true, artificial nature of these phenomena. His work seeks to expose power relations, to make room for individual narratives, and takes a stand on behalf of equality. Saarikko collaborates regularly with his partner Sasha Huber Saarikko.

Sasha Huber (CH/FI) is a Helsinki based multidisciplinary visual artist of Swiss-Haitian heritage. She works and presents her work internationally and is primarily concerned with the politics of memory and belonging, particularly in relation to colonial residue left in the environment. Sensitive to the subtle threads connecting history and the present, she uses and responds to archival material within a layered creative practice that encompasses performance-based interventions, video, photography, and collaborations. Huber is also claiming the compressed-air staple gun, aware of its symbolic significance as a weapon while offering the potential to renegotiate unequal power dynamics. Huber works regularly in a creative partnership with her partner artist Petri Saarikko. She holds an MA from the University of Art and Design Helsinki and is presently undertaking practice-based PhD studies.