Sasha Huber’s multidisciplinary practice investigates colonial residue in the environment, highlighting the ways in which history is imprinted in the landscape through acts of remembrance. Rentyhorn (2008) documents a reparative intervention led by the Helsinki-based artist to rename the Agassizhorn, an Alpine peak named after Swiss-American glaciologist and “scientific” racist Louis Agassiz (1807–73). The mural captures Huber looking out over the Agassizhorn while holding a plaque arguing for the mountain’s renaming—a reminder that the gallery site is also embedded with colonial histories.

Dans sa pratique multidisciplinaire, Sasha Huber étudie les vestiges coloniaux dans l’environnement, mettant en lumière les façons dont l’histoire s’imprime dans le paysage par des actes de commémoration. Rentyhorn (2008) illustre une intervention réparatrice menée par l’artiste établie à Helsinki pour rebaptiser l’Agassizhorn, un sommet alpin portant le nom de Louis Agassiz (1807–73), un glaciologue et scientifique américano-suisse raciste. La photographie murale montre Huber regardant l’Agassizhorn tout en tenant une plaque qui réclame le changement de nom de la montagne, rappelant ainsi que le site de la galerie est également imprégné de l’histoire coloniale.

The contributions Agassiz made to the fields of glaciology, paleontology, and geology resulted in over 80 landmarks (and several animal species) bearing his name on the Earth, Moon, and Mars. Less well known, however, is his legacy of racism. Agassiz was a pioneering thinker of apartheid and used his position as professor of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University to actively promote the subjugation, exploitation, and segregation of Black people and other people of colour. In 1850, to help “prove” his racist theories, Agassiz commissioned Joseph T. Zealy (1812–93) to use the then-new technology of photography to document, against their will, seven enslaved people—five men and two women—on a South Carolina plantation.

In 2007, Huber was invited to work alongside the transatlantic activist committee “Demounting Louis Agassiz,” which had been petitioning for the Agassizhorn to be renamed Rentyhorn in honour of Congolese-born Renty—one of the seven enslaved people forcibly photographed for Agassiz. The Swiss-Haitian artist’s resulting intervention on the mountaintop not only drew much-needed international attention to the campaign but also presented a roadmap for the ways in which one can tenderly, and with care, refute the damage already undertaken by history. Rentyhorn thus captures a moment of introspection as the artist looks down upon the summit of this contested mountain and prepares to install, albeit temporarily, a metal plaque engraved with Renty’s portrait and a short text arguing for renaming the Swiss peak. Shortly after the intervention, Huber created an online petition addressed to the public, and in 2008, Huber and the Demounting committee’s founder, Has Fässler, sent a series of letters to the local council, the United Nations, and to UNESCO’s Executive Board and Advisory Committee. Having now garnered some 3,000 signatures worldwide, Huber’s petition remains active.*

Huber employs photography here to challenge the terms by which we remember, asking not only who and what we memorialize, but also, and more importantly, how we do so. Her large-scale image—facing Lake Ontario—points to the resonance of these issues close to home, as The Power Plant and Toronto sit on the traditional gathering place for the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples.

Rentyhorn is a prelude to YOU NAME IT, Sasha Huber’s first solo exhibition in Canada, on view at The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery from February 5 to May 1, 2022.

*To add your signature, you may access the petition at www.rentyhorn.ch.

Curated by Justine Kohleal

• Sasha Huber (CH/FI) is a visual artist of Swiss-Haitian heritage, born in Zurich in 1975. She lives and works in Helsinki, Finland. Huber’s work is primarily concerned with the politics of memory and belonging, particularly in relation to colonial residue left in the environment. She uses and responds to archival material in performance-based interventions, video, photography, and collaborations. Huber has had numerous solo exhibitions and participated in the Venezia (2015), Sydney (2014), and São Paulo (2010) biennales. She holds an MA from the University of Art and Design Helsinki, and is undertaking PhD studies at the Zurich University of the Arts. Huber also works in a creative partnership with artist Petri Saarikko. In 2018 Huber received the State Art Award from the Arts Promotion Center Finland.