Research Catalogue

Owning Our Madness is a pre-study initiated by Whyte & Zettergren on how mental illness, PTSD, and historical traumas impact artistic expressions. Today's society is marked by conflicts, violence, and environmental disasters, which create generational traumas and increase mental illness both locally and globally. We aim to investigate how these psychological effects shape art and how art, by processing and visualizing traumas, can contribute to healing on both micro and macro levels. The project aims to explore this synergy and its role in artistic renewal. Historically, culture, religion, and rituals have been used to provide comfort in times of mental illness. PTSD treatment with art therapy is believed to help heal the brain's structures and functions damaged by trauma. In the pre-study, we will gather knowledge through interviews and practical sessions. By experimenting with methods to visualize the body's changes during trauma, we aim to develop techniques that combine choreography, moving images, and neurotechnology (EEG and EMG). We are exploring the stage of chaos and transformation that unites the creative process and trauma processing to develop a new artistic method. The question of the 'mad artistic genius' attributed to the creation of groundbreaking art is long-lived, but is there any truth to it? The goal is to lay the foundation for a future project where more participants contribute to exploring the connection between mental illness and artistic innovation. The pre-study is supported by seed money from Kulturbryggan, Konstnärsnämnden.

My artworks

Whyte&Zettergren is an artistic duo comprising Jamaican dancer and performance artist Olando Whyte and Swedish visual artist Rut KarinZettergren. The duo’s works constitute an ongoing investigation of places, materials, and bodies as bearers of historical memory. Their collaboration makes visible how contemporary and historical connections between the Nordics and the Caribbean, shaped by the transatlantic slave trade, continue to affect cultures in the Atlantic world. Through their creative processes, they search for methods to process historical traumas and strive to create rituals that envision possible futures. Their works have been performed and presented at various venues, including 3:e Våningen, Galleri Gerlesborg, TEGEN2, and Konsthall C in Sweden; The Living Art Museum and Explorer Festival in Iceland; Fd Molyne's Sugar Estate, Stokes Hall Grate House and Fort Charles in Jamaica and the Museum of Impossible Forms in Finland.

Welcome to Galaxy Revolution, the space station of Historical Spiritual Vibrations space agency. At the station you can access training sessions and game instructions we use to imagine training and healing practices for the new space race. You can experience glimpses of our space journeys and learn more of the history of the tools and knowledge we bring with us on our missions. Dock at our space station and (mis)use our methods to reshape and imagine the past, present, and future in your own way. The exposition gathers documentation of Whyte&Zettergren's live actions and ritual practices at locations in Iceland where the Apollo 11 astronauts trained for their journey to the Moon. It also includes infrared imagery, a technology used in space visualization to capture light waves invisible to the human eye, recorded during the duo’s space journeys. The duo explores space both as a site where future colonial projects are planned and as a fictional realm for imagining alternative worlds. In their work, Zettergren's speculative technofeminism and Whyte's ritual dubfuturism intersect. Practices that reshape futures in various ways; through an intersectional feminist and technocritical lens, and through the experimental remixing of history, ritual, and rhythm in dub culture. When the present feels dystopian, dreams of life in space become a way to envision change, a transformation of the world through imagination, whose echoes vibrate into the future.

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.

Ljuset Year: 2024 Medium: Exhibition Materials: Iclands of suagar and salt with tv screens with documentation of performance and performance objects. Ljuset (The Light) is this spring's first exhibition at Konsthall C. Here, the Nigerian-American artist Ayodamola Okunseinde meets the Jamaican-Swedish duo Whyte&Zettergren. These two practices explore violent historical and contemporary global conditions. Through interactive technology and ritual performance, Okunseinde and Whyte&Zettergren search above and beyond our world. Together they present a complex web of economic and political connections. Here, art becomes a starting point for change. Despite the exhibition's title, The Light does not offer any salvation for our time. It is the visitor, encountering the art, who can take the first step towards a solution. We at Konsthall C want to invite you as a visitor to find yourself, among the smoke, salt, sugar and fabric. You are the Light. About the artists Ayodamola Tanimowo Okunseinde (ayo) is a Nigerian-American artist, designer, anthropologist and time-traveler living and working in New York. His works range from painting and speculative design to physically interactive works, wearable technology, and explorations of “Reclamation”. He has exhibited and presented at the 11th Shanghai Biennale, Tribeca Storyscapes, EYEO Festival, Brooklyn Museum, M.I.T. Beyond the Cradle, and Afrotectopia amongst others. He is the co-founder and Director of Iyapo Repository, a resource library that exists in a nondescript future that was founded to collect and preserve artifacts to ensure the history and legacy of people of African descent. Whyte&Zettergren is an artistic duo comprising Jamaican dancer Olando Whyte and Swedish visual artist Rut Karin Zettergren. 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. 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 Bryndís Björnsdóttir 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).