Whyte&Zettergren is an artistic duo comprising Jamaican dancer Olando Whyte and Swedish visual artist Rut Karin Zettergren. Their collaboration, initiated in 2018 with the project, Herring, Iron, Gunpowder, Humans & Sugar (HIGHS). With the project they visit locations historically linked to the triangular trade, the economic system underpinning the transatlantic slave trade. At these historical sites, Whyte&Zettergren perform live acts with choreography, storytelling, and ceremonial actions. In the acts they use objects crafted from materials extracted, manufactured, or exported from these locations.
In March 2022, the duo launched a space-traveling program for healing Historical Spiritual Vibrations outside a saltfish factory in Reykjavik. A resistance act inspired by Afrofuturism, dub, and speculative fiction, envisioning space as a realm of freedom. This initiative originated from their participation in the collaborative artistic research project ”N∆M (2020-2022), organized by BryndÌs BjˆrnsdÛttir. During the project, they explored colonial interlinks between the North and the Caribbean, first focusing on food, and then moving in to research the relationship between plans for new space exploration and colonization, along with their connections to legacies stemming from the Enlightenment.
The duoís artistic works constitute an ongoing investigation into the historical memory held by a place, material, and body. Their process visualizes the entanglement between geographically distant locations, objects, cultures, and times. Through their creative processes, they seek potential methods for healing historical trauma and strive to craft rites that envision possible futures.
Whyte&Zettergren is currently working on their space-traveling program along with a video artwork on historical trauma and the collaborative research project Contingency Sample with BryndÌs BjˆrnsdÛttir that explore extractivism in the era of the new space age.
Their works have previously been performed and presented at various venues, including, and the Living Art Museum in Reykjavik (IS).
Olando Whyte is a dancer and choreographer based in Kingston, Jamaica. Olando has been practicing the street dance genre Dancehall since an early age, representing his community, Drewsland, in numerous performances and competitions around the island. He received scholarships to stydy at Edna Manley College of Visual and Performing Arts in Kingston for contemporary Reggae dance in 2013 and traditional Jamaican dance in 2018.
Whyte is the founder and leader of the dancehall dance crew Real Konnection since 2011. The crew has earned several awards, including the Boom Baderdan Road Dance Competition and the World Reggae Dance Competition. They have served as official dancers for Magnum and Rum Bar Rum, and have toured with musicians such as QQ, Spice, Demarco, Mr. G, Fambo, Cargo, and RDX. He is part of the dance and visual art duo Whyte&Zettergren that, since 2018, has performed and exhibited in institutions such as the Living Art Museum in Iceland, Tredje Våningen, and Galleri Gerlesborg in Sweden, as well as at Stokes Hall Great House in Jamaica.
In his choreographies, Whyte blends Dancehall with traditional Jamaican dances and art objects. Through these performances, he aims to introduce a spiritual element from Afro-Jamaican religion and rituals, seeking to affirm his heritage and question colonial legacies, such as the Obeah Act of 1760, which still makes it illegal in Jamaica to perform religious rituals with African origins.
Rut Karin Zettergren’s (Sweden) work often commences as an exploration of historical events or speculations about the future. She draws inspiration from theories and histories surrounding cyber and cyborg feminism, science fiction, technological heritage, and the construction of modernity. Her artistic works take the form of drawings, performances, video, spatial installations, VR, and online presentations. Rut Karin frequently engages in artistic collaborations, such as Scylla’s Opulent Noise Generator (SONG), which practise polymorphic thinking and employs techno-feminist strategies to speculate on possible, more inclusive futures through game-making. And Whyte&Zettergren that creates performances to explore entangled trans-Atlantic cultural heritages and seeks artistic methods to cater healing for historical traumas caused by coloniality
Zettergren is currently a doctoral candidate in art at the University of the Arts Helsinki, working on her project, ”Cyborg Perception,” which investigates the infrared image, its military origins, and applies techno-feminist strategies to (mis)use it and explore its potential to perceive other worlds beyond the visible.
Zettergren has presented her works at institutions, including CPR2 (US), Mänttä Festival, Sinne, Titanic Gallery (FI), Barbican Centre, FACT Centre, Arnolfini (UK), Oberhausen International Film Festival, Städtische Galerie Bremen, Laborneunzehn (DE), Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition (TW), Impakt Festival, Rotterdam International Film Festival (NL), Havana Biennale (CU), West Space (AU), Göteborgs Konsthall, Visby Konstmuseum, Södertälje Konsthall, Tensta Konsthall, Fotografiska Museet, and Galleri 54 (SE).