In 2008, Sasha Huber, a Swiss-Haitian multimedia visual artist based in Finland, began a project to challenge the problematic legacy of Swiss-American glaciologist and natural scientist Louis Agassiz (1807-1873).
Agassiz was a devout creationist who lectured on his belief in racial segregation, defended slavery and propagated the unfounded idea that races were different species. These racist ideas have been dignified and normalised through the commemorative naming of seven species and more than 80 places. Astonishingly, these include one on the surface of the moon, another on Mars and his audacious self-naming of a mountain in Switzerland – “Agassizhorn”.
A solo exhibition titled You Name It – which brings together a selection of Huber’s art works that act as challenges to historical, systematic, scientific racism – has been at the Autograph gallery in London since November 2022.
