0
- 0
0
A new video podcast by Holding Up The Ladder with artist Sasha Huber, discussing her creative practice and how art can redress contested histories
A Holding up the Ladder production in collaboration with Autograph. The podcast discusses Sasha’s practice, how art allows Sasha ‘to renegotiate history’, about contested histories, naming, de-naming renaming landmarks with Louis Agassiz’s name, Sasha’s use of staple guns in her practice. It will also discuss how Sasha’s art has become part of a collective and collaborative tool for reparative justice. And finally, what happens to art beyond exhibition, where does it go, who gets to benefit from it?
Huber's exhibition YOU NAME IT brings together a decade’s worth of work, prompted by the campaign Demounting Louis Agassiz. Initiated in 2007 by Swiss historian and activist Hans Fässler, the campaign seeks to redress the legacy of the Swiss-born glaciologist and racist Louis Agassiz. Huber is also part of Autograph’s commissioning project Amplify – Stranger in the Village: Afro European Matters with a new work in her series The Firsts – Tilo Frey, commemorating the Swiss-Cameroonian politician who campaigned for women’s rights and suffrage in Switzerland; and in Khadija Saye – You Are Missed, honouring the late artist, activist and carer who died alongside her mother in London’s Grenfell Tower fire in 2017.
11 Nov 2022 - 25 Mar 2023
Free exhibition at Autograph's gallery in London
is a Helsinki-based, multidisciplinary visual artist-researcher of Swiss-Haitian heritage. Sensitive to the subtle threads connecting history and the present, she uses and responds to archival material within a layered creative practice that encompasses performance-based interventions, video, photography, and collaborations.
Huber frequently reclaims – aware of its symbolic significance – the compressed-air staple gun as an artistic ‘weapon’, tapping into its potential to renegotiate unequal power dynamics. She is known for her artistic research contribution to the Demounting Louis Agassiz campaign which aims to dismantle the glaciologist’s lesser-known but contentious racist heritage. Huber also often works in a creative partnership with artist Petri Saarikko with whom she initiated the long-term project Remedies Universe.
Huber holds an MA in visual culture from the Aalto University and is presently undertaking a practice-based PhD at Zurich University of the Arts. Huber has had numerous solo presentations, artist residencies and participated in international exhibitions and festivals, including the 56th Venice Biennial in 2015. In 2021 Huber’s solo exhibition tour YOU NAME IT began at Kunstinstituut Melly in Rotterdam and continues to The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto; Autograph in London in 2022/23; and Turku Art Museum in Finland in 2023. In 2018 the Arts Promotion Centre Finland awarded Huber the State Art Award in the category visual arts and in 2022 she received a multi-year artist grant.
Matshidiso is a half South African half Jamaican musician, based in Johannesburg and London. A classically trained pianist, she is also a composer, arranger and singer-songwriter. With a background in human rights law, Matshidiso’s passion is to use music and creativity to promote human rights and justice-based projects. Follow Matshidiso: Website, Instagram, YouTube.
Holding up the Ladder (HUTL) is a podcast about the creative process. The host, Matshidiso interviews creatives from across the Arts about their process. The purpose? To share knowledge, build creative community in order to advance the Arts.
Although host Matshidiso is a musician she is inspired by all kinds of creative mediums stemming from the principle that creatives are inspired and informed by people beyond their own creative practice. Find out more.
The Sasha Huber: YOU NAME IT exhibition was initiated, organised, and circulated by The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto, in collaboration with Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam; Autograph, London, United Kingdom; and Turku Art Museum, Finland.
Podcast filmed and edited by Sam Allam. Camera assistance from Hector Ricky Zepeda.
Images on page: 1) Sasha Huber, Agassiz Down Under [detail], 2015. Courtesy the artist. 2) Courtesy Sasha Huber. 3) Photo by Jeremy Coleman. Courtesy Holding Up the Ladder.
Related content images: 1) Sasha Huber, film still from Rentyhorn [detail], 2008. 4'30" min. Courtesy the artist and the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma. 2) Sasha Huber, Tailoring Freedom – Renty [detail], 2021. Courtesy Tamara Lanier and the artist. Commissioned by The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto; Autograph, London; Turku Art Museum, Finland; and Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam. Original photographs: Renty 35-5-10/53037, courtesy of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University. 3) Sasha Huber, Agassiz Down Under [detail], 2015. Courtesy Matshidiso.
Autograph is a place to see things differently. Since 1988, we have championed photography that explores issues of race, identity, representation, human rights and social justice, sharing how photographs reflect lived experiences and shape our understanding of ourselves and others.
Donate
Join our mailing list
