SVETLANA ZWETKOF

ART | LANGUAGE | SOUND
COLORADO -> WESTERN MASS -> SATX -> MPLS


“ill - messenger poisoner version” (2023) by Shouter Whisperer. Grungey art rock, drums by Alejandro Abeledo and produced by Will Chappell and Svetlana Zwetkof.


TRAVEL THE SITE
2025
2024
2023
BIOGRAPHY
SCHEDULE

Dark Critter demos to come this summer.

SEPT 5, 2025 - 6-8pm - MCAD MFA Fall Show



CURRENT PROJECTS

Dark Critter (2024--onward) - synthesizer, electric guitar + bass, vocals - electronic grungey/doomy art rock made with Ribbon Flores.

PULPY DAUGHTER WATER - essays by S. Zwetkof

coffin nails - video/movement/sound series

2022
2021
2020
PRESS ACCOLADES

forthcoming: Minneapolis College of Art and Design - MFA Candidate - 2025-2027

Mount Holyoke College -  BA Linguistics & Studio Art - 2013-2017
   cum laude, high honors in art thesis
   Phi Beta Kappa & Mary Lyon Scholar

Svet @ Texas Noise and Ambience 2018 - Contemporary Arts Museum Houston

Rousay/Zwetkof Tour - midwest United States - summer 2017

2019
2018
2017
2016


 PAST PROJECTS

Persistent Bloom Creative Retreat - February 2025

Shouter Whisperer (2023-2024) - synthesizer, electric ukulele, vocals - art rock
   one released album

Svet (2016-2023) -  vocals, synthesizer - experimental/ambient music
   seven released albums (listed with Shouter Whisperer)

Jejune Stars (2018-2019) - synthesizer, vocals -  indie

Ston the Band (2023-2024) - synthesizer - wonky tonk

14th Annual Research Colloquium for the College of Education         and Human Development at UTSA - speaker and graduate
   assistant organizer

Rousay/Zwetkof Duo (2017-2018) - vocals - experimental improvisational drum/vocal duo

Gloomy Swamp, Breathless Mud (2016-2017) -  
       wax sculptures and video/sound installations.
       Read the written thesis.

CoLang 2016 archivist working with Unangam Tunuu in                    Fairbanks, AK

Institute for Curatorial Practice 2015 student/intern

Diversions A Cappella - collegiate a cappella vocalist
      and arrangement composer (2014-2017)

BIOGRAPHY

Svetlana (“Svet”) Zwetkof is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Minneapolis, MN. She grew up in Greeley, Colorado where her childhood was spent handling pinecones, holding funerals for fallen squirrels, and using leaves as pretend currency. In 2013 she moved to South Hadley, Massachusetts, where she attended Mount Holyoke College. During undergrad she studied Studio Art and Linguistics, ultimately completing a senior thesis project entitled “Gloomy Swamp, Breathless Mud” that used video/sound installations and clay/wax sculptures to explore the psychological terrain of trauma via geological metaphor. For this project she waded through lakes and creeks, cast wax directly in clay, and recorded vocal arrangements that dealt with grief and reclamation. As a Linguistics major, Svet focused on the nexus of ethnomusicology and various modes of literature/literacy.

In 2017, post-grad, Svet moved to San Antonio, Texas to follow a musical thread that related to the sound art and a cappella music she explored during college. Since that time, she has had many strange (and “odd”) jobs and performed in a number of bands and experimental music projects, including the solo vocal/noise project called Svet, an art rock band called Shouter Whisperer, and her current electronic duo project Dark Critter, which is performed with her partner Ribbon Flores. Briefly Svet attended the University of Texas at San Antonio to study Reading & Literacy, focusing on theory of metaphor, oral literacy, and promoting student agency through autoethnography/autobiographical writing.

Svet will be attending Minneapolis College of Art and Design in the fall for an MFA in Visual Studies. She is returning to a life of pinecones, ambiguous sculptures, epoxy clay, handmade paper, and wax. She is also exploring art and olfaction through perfume and scented materials in 3D space. Sound, scent, and sculpture merge in multisensory experiences. Current project topics include Celtic doom spirals, a fear of the brown bull (a concept inspired by the Irish epic of The Tain), and victim advocacy for survivors of sexual assault.