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 ÓNÆM (2020-2022), organized by Bryndís Björnsdóttir. 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 duo's 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.