In conversation w/ SUUTOO
NOVEMBER 18, 2025 → WORDS TAMAR CLARKE-BROWN
PHOTOGRAPHY CHEUK NG STYLING FERANMI ESO HAIR JACQUELINE EZEUKO MAKE-UP FEY-CARLA ADEDIJI SPECIAL THANKS PLURAL ARTIST MANAGEMENT
SUUTOO is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice weaves noise, spirituality and myth into sonic environments and performances as extended moments of ‘becoming’. Embracing a poetics of the in-between, SUUTOO’s worldbuilding explores the potential of alterity; navigating symbolism, eroticism, fetish and fugitivity.
SUUTOO will be in Berlin for the debut event of TOP MODEL BERLIN on November 22nd, supporting YVES TUMOR (rare solo performance) and COUCOU CHLOE (live). Get your tickets here!
Always gorgeous to spend time with you. How would you describe your practice to the uninitiated?
I am deeply invested in image-making. Even when working with sonics, I’d argue that everything I do is very scenic. I think that has always been my entry point into creation. My practice has always existed in this tense place, in my relation to the world but also to creation itself, refusing to be denied what I desire. I toy with processes of subversion, do stupid and vulnerable shit in public to challenge myself, my surroundings and anyone watching, in the hopes of becoming entirely fearless (or realise what I’m scared of). I think a lot about how symbols and imagery shape our internal and external realities - and what we can do to change them, all the ways in which disruption and trickstery can help, even when it may not look like “help”.
Whoever said ‘The only good system is a sound system’ really ate.
I play with symbols, objectification, and expectation - speakers as totems, undressing in front of an audience, spraying myself and the surroundings with orange paint, playing guitar with my tongue - all SUUTOO erotica engages with a process of subjectification.
We first met more than 10 years ago at an underground club in Stockholm, and ever since, you’ve been steadily and carefully crafting and presenting your practice in experimental arts spaces and underground club culture. You move fluidly across music, sound, performance, fashion and nightlife. How do these spaces inform your practice?
I use what I have available to me, to move closer to, and develop, an intimacy with the things I am interested in. All mediums are just pathways to expanded play, so, by not seeing these expressions as separate but using them to forge a moment, I think it transcends the specificity of the space and allows for anyone to relate to (or more often, participate in) those moments. I try to remind myself that I am limitless daily, and I believe in world-building as a praxis. No matter how small or big, loud or silent the attempts are, they are still worthy of exploration.
One of my favourite performances of yours was in 2019 at South London Gallery in the context of Liz Johnson Artur’s exhibition ‘If you know the beginning the end is no trouble’. You leapt from the roof like a vigilante with incense alight in your mouth, and proceeded to ritually unwrap your bandage-clad body. It was this insane merging of punk riot act with ritual. How did SUUTOO emerge? What does SUUTOO represent to you on a personal, spiritual or symbolic level?
That was my first ever performance - which I forced myself to do to let go of my fears of being perceived, so I unraveled myself (stripped) and I have an affinity for jumping off of high places, so... SUUTOO is a result of naming myself, which I think everyone does and needs to do at some point, renegotiating the way you show up in the world, who and what you want to be.
What’s your relationship to myth?
I think everything is myth, from the intimate stories we tell ourselves - our families, our communities - to the historical scale of history, national identity, religion, culture, etc. So I’m very interested in the process of myth-making and the radical potential it holds to reshape our narratives, visions and understanding of ourselves, the world, where one ends and the other begins. What myths can we introduce that might shatter or crack something open? Can you tell I want to break something?
Increasingly, with loreculture and social media, we are the stories we tell about ourselves. Your practice sits in the in between, resists fixed meaning and creates these transitional moments of ‘becoming’, expanding on the ‘myth of SUUTOO’. What does ‘becoming’ mean to you and does that manifest in your practice?
I play a lot with becoming and undoing in my practice: allowing and refusal. (Becoming) symbol but then also always subverting it - it’s a little something like interrupted propaganda - I’m trynna get all the baddies to listen to experimental stuff hahaha.
I’ve battered myself a lot with concepts of perfectionism, which is extremely supremacist - presupposing that there are things that are finished and therefore can be perfect or imperfect, but nothing is ever truly finished, it is always becoming, always in flux. Becoming is a constant process of creation (and destruction), and shifting my perspective to a becoming rather than ‘perfect’ or ‘imperfect’ has changed everything for me.
My work is rooted in improvisation and embodiment. It’s a vulnerable place to operate from, but I prefer it to trying to recreate the same thing over and over again. Each context asks for something different - whether that comes from scarcity or abundance - I like to play with those limitations and see what I can make of it. Because again, your girl is limitless. Dream we dream.
I was going to ask how you keep grounded whilst in a liminal space, but you’re a water sign, so maybe it’s better to talk about your relationship to the horizon or to mirages - I always associate your practice with vapour for some reason. I understand you have mantras…
Yes - ALL I WANNA BE IS FREE.
Smoke is one of my favorite materials. I really want to get a smoke machine for my bedroom, and god-willingly, when I make bank, I will get the Rick Owens smoke machine “handbag”. Nothing like a bit of sensory abstraction, quite literally disorienting and dissolving you, yet making you one with everything. Lush af.
Oh, and on my relation to groundedness, I take deep breaths, but honestly I think the unknown is a beautiful place to be, you find yourself when you are the most lost *puts smoke machine on blast*.
The colour orange, and especially orange sand often features in your performances and installations, a foundational element in the worlds you make. What other elements would you say are core parts of your vocabulary?
The orange sand I’ve used in my performance and installation works is actually a piece called BODY (Stain) - originally a mixture of pigment and sand which stained anything that came in contact with it, so when I had my first exhibitions, at MDT and MEGA Foundation in Stockholm, it left a mark on both visitors and the space. I love sand as a material, unruly, gets everywhere, refuses to be contained and if you’ve ever seen a microscopic image of sand, it is quite literally noise, lots of deteriorated, granularized debris.
As of right now I’d say I am smoke, light, noise, spray, a vandal, a trick or treat.
I’m especially interested in how your work speaks back to coloniality. In your recent work THE STRIP (2025); a performance film nominated for CIRCA Art Prize 2025, you walk through the city with an orange skin. You described the performance as ‘a flash against the concrete’; ‘fugitive choreography / a quiet vandalism of the everyday’.
THE STRIP is a documented performance confronting my relationship to public space through a city walk tracing the traditional May Day route. Most of my ideas come from imagining an image I want to create, and I try to trust that these images hold things. THE STRIP held a lot of things for me; it was a very silent (yet extremely loud) catharsis. I’m not interested in overexplaining works that already speak so vividly on something, but it’s a stomp, stomp, STOMP, STORM, STORMING of colossal (and minor) effect.
How do you approach composition when you work with noise and demolition? Is there still an internal or structuring logic?
I think I’m really interested in making noise, I’m not a very loud person, but when I do make noise I want it to be thick and I want to be able to bathe in it.
I made LOUD from sampling EXTRA, cutting and sewing it together again, it’s almost like a self-referencing paraphrase. Or a remix. In regards to structure - I think composition is something I work with across mediums. Whether through installation, performance or djing - I enjoy building tension, drama and suspense through silence, breaks, builds and deteriorating/vandalising sound. I love clipping - be free girl, live in the reds. See what happens. Fuck a limiter!
You’re currently focusing a lot of energy on sound, music and live arts. What’s coming up in 2026 for you?
I’m finishing up an EP with music that has soundtracked my performances over the last 5 years, which will be released on DEMO, a music label as invested in demolition as I am. I am going to do more performances, live-shows, more scheming with Feranmi Eso and hopefully make way more noise.
In conversation w/ SUUTOO
NOVEMBER 18, 2025
WORDS TAMAR CLARKE-BROWN PHOTOGRAPHY CHEUK NG STYLING FERANMI ESO HAIR JACQUELINE EZEUKO MAKE-UP FEY-CARLA ADEDIJI SPECIAL THANKS PLURAL ARTIST MANAGEMENT
SUUTOO is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice weaves noise, spirituality and myth into sonic environments and performances as extended moments of ‘becoming’. Embracing a poetics of the in-between, SUUTOO’s worldbuilding explores the potential of alterity; navigating symbolism, eroticism, fetish and fugitivity.
SUUTOO will be in Berlin for the debut event of TOP MODEL BERLIN on November 22nd, supporting YVES TUMOR (rare solo performance) and COUCOU CHLOE (live). Get your tickets here!
Always gorgeous to spend time with you. How would you describe your practice to the uninitiated?
I am deeply invested in image-making. Even when working with sonics, I’d argue that everything I do is very scenic. I think that has always been my entry point into creation. My practice has always existed in this tense place, in my relation to the world but also to creation itself, refusing to be denied what I desire. I toy with processes of subversion, do stupid and vulnerable shit in public to challenge myself, my surroundings and anyone watching, in the hopes of becoming entirely fearless (or realise what I’m scared of). I think a lot about how symbols and imagery shape our internal and external realities - and what we can do to change them, all the ways in which disruption and trickstery can help, even when it may not look like “help”.
Whoever said ‘The only good system is a sound system’ really ate.
I play with symbols, objectification, and expectation - speakers as totems, undressing in front of an audience, spraying myself and the surroundings with orange paint, playing guitar with my tongue - all SUUTOO erotica engages with a process of subjectification.
We first met more than 10 years ago at an underground club in Stockholm, and ever since, you’ve been steadily and carefully crafting and presenting your practice in experimental arts spaces and underground club culture. You move fluidly across music, sound, performance, fashion and nightlife. How do these spaces inform your practice?
I use what I have available to me, to move closer to, and develop, an intimacy with the things I am interested in. All mediums are just pathways to expanded play, so, by not seeing these expressions as separate but using them to forge a moment, I think it transcends the specificity of the space and allows for anyone to relate to (or more often, participate in) those moments. I try to remind myself that I am limitless daily, and I believe in world-building as a praxis. No matter how small or big, loud or silent the attempts are, they are still worthy of exploration.
One of my favourite performances of yours was in 2019 at South London Gallery in the context of Liz Johnson Artur’s exhibition ‘If you know the beginning the end is no trouble’. You leapt from the roof like a vigilante with incense alight in your mouth, and proceeded to ritually unwrap your bandage-clad body. It was this insane merging of punk riot act with ritual. How did SUUTOO emerge? What does SUUTOO represent to you on a personal, spiritual or symbolic level?
That was my first ever performance - which I forced myself to do to let go of my fears of being perceived, so I unraveled myself (stripped) and I have an affinity for jumping off of high places, so... SUUTOO is a result of naming myself, which I think everyone does and needs to do at some point, renegotiating the way you show up in the world, who and what you want to be.
What’s your relationship to myth?
I think everything is myth, from the intimate stories we tell ourselves - our families, our communities - to the historical scale of history, national identity, religion, culture, etc. So I’m very interested in the process of myth-making and the radical potential it holds to reshape our narratives, visions and understanding of ourselves, the world, where one ends and the other begins. What myths can we introduce that might shatter or crack something open? Can you tell I want to break something?
Increasingly, with loreculture and social media, we are the stories we tell about ourselves. Your practice sits in the in between, resists fixed meaning and creates these transitional moments of ‘becoming’, expanding on the ‘myth of SUUTOO’. What does ‘becoming’ mean to you and does that manifest in your practice?
I play a lot with becoming and undoing in my practice: allowing and refusal. (Becoming) symbol but then also always subverting it - it’s a little something like interrupted propaganda - I’m trynna get all the baddies to listen to experimental stuff hahaha.
I’ve battered myself a lot with concepts of perfectionism, which is extremely supremacist - presupposing that there are things that are finished and therefore can be perfect or imperfect, but nothing is ever truly finished, it is always becoming, always in flux. Becoming is a constant process of creation (and destruction), and shifting my perspective to a becoming rather than ‘perfect’ or ‘imperfect’ has changed everything for me.
My work is rooted in improvisation and embodiment. It’s a vulnerable place to operate from, but I prefer it to trying to recreate the same thing over and over again. Each context asks for something different - whether that comes from scarcity or abundance - I like to play with those limitations and see what I can make of it. Because again, your girl is limitless. Dream we dream.
I was going to ask how you keep grounded whilst in a liminal space, but you’re a water sign, so maybe it’s better to talk about your relationship to the horizon or to mirages - I always associate your practice with vapour for some reason. I understand you have mantras…
Yes - ALL I WANNA BE IS FREE.
Smoke is one of my favorite materials. I really want to get a smoke machine for my bedroom, and god-willingly, when I make bank, I will get the Rick Owens smoke machine “handbag”. Nothing like a bit of sensory abstraction, quite literally disorienting and dissolving you, yet making you one with everything. Lush af.
Oh, and on my relation to groundedness, I take deep breaths, but honestly I think the unknown is a beautiful place to be, you find yourself when you are the most lost *puts smoke machine on blast*.
The colour orange, and especially orange sand often features in your performances and installations, a foundational element in the worlds you make. What other elements would you say are core parts of your vocabulary?
The orange sand I’ve used in my performance and installation works is actually a piece called BODY (Stain) - originally a mixture of pigment and sand which stained anything that came in contact with it, so when I had my first exhibitions, at MDT and MEGA Foundation in Stockholm, it left a mark on both visitors and the space. I love sand as a material, unruly, gets everywhere, refuses to be contained and if you’ve ever seen a microscopic image of sand, it is quite literally noise, lots of deteriorated, granularized debris.
As of right now I’d say I am smoke, light, noise, spray, a vandal, a trick or treat.
I’m especially interested in how your work speaks back to coloniality. In your recent work THE STRIP (2025); a performance film nominated for CIRCA Art Prize 2025, you walk through the city with an orange skin. You described the performance as ‘a flash against the concrete’; ‘fugitive choreography / a quiet vandalism of the everyday’.
THE STRIP is a documented performance confronting my relationship to public space through a city walk tracing the traditional May Day route. Most of my ideas come from imagining an image I want to create, and I try to trust that these images hold things. THE STRIP held a lot of things for me; it was a very silent (yet extremely loud) catharsis. I’m not interested in overexplaining works that already speak so vividly on something, but it’s a stomp, stomp, STOMP, STORM, STORMING of colossal (and minor) effect.
How do you approach composition when you work with noise and demolition? Is there still an internal or structuring logic?
I think I’m really interested in making noise, I’m not a very loud person, but when I do make noise I want it to be thick and I want to be able to bathe in it.
I made LOUD from sampling EXTRA, cutting and sewing it together again, it’s almost like a self-referencing paraphrase. Or a remix. In regards to structure - I think composition is something I work with across mediums. Whether through installation, performance or djing - I enjoy building tension, drama and suspense through silence, breaks, builds and deteriorating/vandalising sound. I love clipping - be free girl, live in the reds. See what happens. Fuck a limiter!
You’re currently focusing a lot of energy on sound, music and live arts. What’s coming up in 2026 for you?
I’m finishing up an EP with music that has soundtracked my performances over the last 5 years, which will be released on DEMO, a music label as invested in demolition as I am. I am going to do more performances, live-shows, more scheming with Feranmi Eso and hopefully make way more noise.