Petri Saarikko

Petri Saarikko works as a visual media artist and is based in Helsinki. Lullaby Nest marks a new chapter in the artists’ ongoing Remedies series, begun in 2010 to explore diverse approaches to healing in different geographical and cultural contexts. In collaboration with musician Matshidiso, the artists consider the age-old tradition of the lullaby within the context of upholding time and space for rest and sleep. The intimate gesture of caretaking and soothing a child to sleep is an ancient, inherited knowledge deeply embedded in human experience. Spanning across cultures, lullabies share similar melodic, structural and rhythmic patterns – gentle, repetitive and reassuring in tone – which slow down heart and respiration rates in children and adults alike. Regardless of the language, lullabies hold the calming, hypnotic characteristics which can soothe a child to sleep.