VIDEO: Sasha Huber // Louis Who?, 2010

Excerpt of the article by Haitian painter Sasha Huber and Petri Saarikko from the book (T)races of Louis Agassiz: Photography, Body and Science, Yesterday and Today.

(...) "Praça Agassiz, is in the suburbs of Rio, about an hour’s drive from the city center. The site is marked on maps as a square, but it is actually a dangerous intersection where, according to local inhabitants, there is a traffic accident on average every ten days or so. One week before our visit, a bus had crashed through a garage and demolished an entire house. None of the residents had any idea who Agassiz was or where the name of the square originated." (...)

Text on the yellow flag:

“Louis Who? What you should know about Louis Agassiz”
(1807, Switzerland - 1873, US)

Scientist, naturalist, glaciologist,
influential racist, pioneering thinker of apartheid,
proposed racial segregation in the US.

Professor at Harvard University and
Director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology.

In 1865-66 led scientific Thayer Expedition in
Rio De Janeiro and Amazon Basin area in Brazil.

Came to Brazil to collect fish and other aquatic specimens
to add to the already voluminous collection in
the recently built Museum of Comparative Zoology,
and second to conduct geological research
that could sustain Agassiz’s theories on glaciation.

Came to study local population and documented
“Brazilian races” through the use of photography.