This project takes its title from the “contingency samples” collected during Apollo 11’s 1969 lunar landing, specimens gathered quickly to ensure something would return to Earth if the mission failed. The astronauts trained in Iceland, learning to read landscapes and minerals. Both this training and the idea of a contingency sample invite reflection on our own planet: in an age of crisis, what might be Earth’s contingency sample?
At the same time of the moon landing, Iceland was entering a new industrial era with aluminum. Aluminum, long a symbol of the future, linked Jamaica (bauxite), Kallaait Nunaat (cryolite), and Iceland (energy) in a global network. Here, aluminum itself is proposed as a contingency sample: a material that holds the potential to catalyze alternative futures, reframing progress around a more urgent question—who holds the right to produce the future?
Within the project, we use sculpture, video, poetry, and performance to explore how this material interlinks histories, geographies, and times. We will also engage in youth workshops where participants can create their own contingency samples as they answer the questions proposed by the project.
Research trip funded by the Nordic Cultural Fund Globus Opstart, during which Olando Whyte and Rut Karin Zettergren visited sites in Jamaica close to bauxite mining and sulfur-rich healing springs.
Still image of bauxite soil and vegetation viewed from a car window near Milk River, Jamaica, 2023. Photo credits: Whyte&Zettergren.
Still image of SPL fused with lava stone at a beach in Straumsvík, Iceland, 2024. Photo credits: Rut Karin Zettergren.
still image of opened smelters in SAL aluminium plant, Straumsvík, Iceland, 2024. Photo credits: Whyte&Zettergren.
Still image Whyte&Zettergren looking for SPL in Straumsvík, Iceland, 2024. Photo credits: Bryndís Björnsdóttir.
Still image of Whyte&Zettergren conducting geological training at sites near Lake Mývatn, Iceland, 2022. Photo credits: Bryndís Björnsdóttir.
Still image of Whyte&Zettergren holding one of the Apollo 11 mission patches at the Exploration Museum, Húsavík, Iceland, 2022. Photo: Bryndís Björnsdóttir.
The essay The Soil, the Ocean and the Sample by Rut Karin Zettergren includes scene descriptions and reflections from research trips to Jamaica and Iceland undertaken as preparatory studies for The Contingency Sample. Published in May 2025 in Unfolding Island Ecologies, a book that brings together essays by artists, curators, and researchers examining ecological interdependence, extractivism, and artistic practices.
Research trip funded by the Nordic Cultural Fund Globus Opstart, during which Olando Whyte and Rut Karin Zettergren visited Iceland. Together with Bryndís Björnsdóttir, they visited aluminum plants near Reykjavik and a beach affected by waste from the plants.
Research trip to Húsavík, Iceland, during the project Immune, where Bryndís Björnsdóttir, Olando Whyte, and Rut Karin Zettergren visited sites where astronauts undertook geological training before the Apollo 11 mission.
The workshop in Jamaica will be carried out by Olando Whyte and Rut Karin Zettergren in January 2026. It will take place either in Maverley, a low-income neighborhood in West Kingston where Olando grew up and has worked as a dance teacher, in collaboration with Maverley Hughenden FC Youth Club Center; or in Linstead, a town inland northwest of Kingston, located near one of Jamaica’s largest alumina plants, in collaboration with Adisa Ancestry Artists Residency.
The workshop will be conducted in two parts: the first will focus on imagining and sculpting the contingency samples, and the second will be a day to share the results with the local community. For this second day, we will also invite local press and cultural institutions.
Workshop in Iceland is lead by Bryndís Björnsdóttir and Bergsveinn Þórsson. Samlagið creative workshop center will be hosting the workshop in collaboration with the project. Bergsveinn Þórsson will enganing with the participants in a dialogue and reflections on the future. Kamila Henriau will be supervising the casting part of the workshop, giving the participants insight into such process and assting them with building the mould for their the casting process.
Samlagið is dedicated to nurturing creative thinking and building a vibrant, imaginative community — with a strong focus on empowering young people. Through a range of courses and workshops, the organization encourages youth to explore their creativity, experiment boldly, and connect with others in a supportive and collaborative environment. Its mission is to provide a space where the next generation of artists, thinkers, and makers can grow and thrive.
An essential part of the project will be to develop and carry out workshops for youths aged 9–12. During these workshops, we will share parts of the research conducted within the project and invite the participants to reflect on what they consider a "contingency sample"; something from their own lives that they would like to carry into the future. Using clay, they will sculpt small-scale models of their contingency samples and write an accompanying letter addressed to the future. The clay sculptures will then be cast in aluminum: one copy will be included in the exhibition, one for the child creator and one to be redistributed, together with the letter, to a child who participated in a workshop at a different location. In this way, the project seeks to create new connections and foster a sense of friendship across different parts of the world. To give children access to creativity as a tool to express fears and wishes about a future world seems necessary today. We hope the sculptures can be objects that imagine worlds beyond environmental disasters and wars to make child rights heard.
Bryndís Björnsdóttir’s wall pieces evoke hydropower and the exhibition site’s own material memory, while honoring the cosmology of the Taíno people. Together, the works expand the cultural field by offering nuanced tools for reflection on identity, responsibility, and interconnectedness in the face of ecological crisis.
Naja Dyrendom Graugaard’s text White Gold will reflect on cryolite, blending poetry to explore emotional and political layers of resource extraction.
The First Splash
This series draws inspiration from a tradition found in various cultural contexts, in which molten metal—typically tin—is poured into water on New Year’s Eve. The abstract form created through this process is then “read” in an attempt to foresee the year ahead. The proposed work will invite approximately seven individuals from diverse backgrounds—artists, scientists, healers, dancers, among others—to interpret a specific aluminum casting. This particular casting was produced during the inauguration of the aluminum smelter at Grundartangi and is currently preserved at the local heritage museum Byggðasafnið á Görðum. Each participant will contribute a short text of approximately 250 words, offering their personal
Tinne Zenner critiques data-driven detachment in environmental discourse, reconnecting viewers with place and consequence.
Whyte & Zettergren use Jamaican backyard casting methods to create small aluminum amulets, activated through performance at bauxite-related sites, offering a poetic and reparative engagement with extractive landscapes.
Workshop in Iceland - Workshop is lead by organiser and artist Bryndís Björnsdóttir and Rut Karin Zettergren. Samlagið creative workshop center will be hosting the workshop in collaboration with the project. Bergsveinn Þórsson will enganing with the participants in a dialogue and reflections on the future. Kamila Henriau will be supervising the casting part of the workshop, giving the participants insight into such process and assting them with building the mould for their the casting process.
VERKSMIÐJAN Á HJALTEYRI
The factory provides a very inspiring and creative setting, and has mostly been used to house installation art, sculpture, audio, films and video. The building, its story and its surroundings spur many fresh ideas, and the works shown here are often produced especially with the factory in mind with the help of the Verksmiðjan association.
In the bord of direction of Verksmiðjan are : Thorbjörg Jónsdóttir, Bjarni Þór Pétursson. Dir: Gústav Geir Bollason. «Ómar-Sounds» Instrument Workshop & Music Festival: Áki Ásgeirsson, Website & Graphic Design: Veronique Legros
The workshop in Icland is lead by Bryndís Björnsdóttir and Bergsveinn Þórsson. Samlagið creative workshop center will be hosting the workshop in collaboration with the project. Bergsveinn Þórsson will enganing with the participants in a dialogue and reflections on the future. Kamila Henriau will be supervising the casting part of the workshop, giving the participants insight into such process and assting them with building the mould for their the casting process.