On 28th May 2007 the 200th birthday of the Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz (1807-1873) was commemorated, both in Switzerland and worldwide. However, Agassiz was not only an influential glaciologist, but also an influential racist and a pioneering thinker of apartheid.
Swiss artist Sasha Huber, who had a scholarship at Fabrica at the same time I did, has created an interesting art project that stretches well into other sociopolitical realms.
A petition is being launched world-wide to get the Swiss government to rename Agassizhorn (a mountain 3946 metres above sea-level) and asking it be called “Rentyhorn” instead; Renty was a slave from the Congo on a South Carolina plantation, whose daguerrotype picture was commissioned by Louis Agassiz in order to “scientifically prove the inferiority of the black race”.
SIGN THE PETITION HERE:
(Do click. Do sign. Entire worlds can stem from names onwards.)