”We are not alone”–Legacies of Eugenics poster exhibition, curated by Professor Marius Turda, will be on display in the main lobby of the Swedish School of Social Sciences (Snellmaninkatu 12) 1 November–13 December 2024. The exhibition can be viewed freely during the opening hours of the building: Monday-Thursday 7:45-20:00, Friday 7:45-18:00 (see exceptions here).
The exhibition was created by Professor Marius Turda and first hosted at the Wiener Library in London in September 2021. Since then, it has travelled to the USA, Serbia, Brazil, Romania, Poland and Sweden and in April 2024 visited Brazil. It was also on display at a number of institutions across the UK, including UCL’s Institute of Education, University of Sheffield and Museum of Oxford.
Eugenics was a global movement. The exhibition highlights this aspect, providing historical examples from Britain, USA, Italy, Sweden, and Romania, whilst recognising that eugenics programmes targeting individuals with mental disabilities and ethnic minorities were not stopped after 1945. They continued during the post-World War II period in countries as diverse as the USA, Scandinavia, Japan, Czechoslovakia, and Peru. The exhibition aims, therefore, to offer a historically informed account of our eugenic past, present, and future, balancing various elements of continuity and discontinuity, of idiosyncrasy and similarity between eugenic movements across the world.
Curator of the exbition Professor Marius Turda will give a talk on November 5 at 14–17 entitled ”Confronting the Legacies of Eugenics” in Auditorium 116 at Unioninkatu 35. The talk will be followed by a panel discussion. The event is free of charge and no registration is needed.
One of the most familiar images associated with eugenics is that of a large tree with strong roots, each representing a scientific discipline. These include biology, anthropology, genetics, medicine, psychiatry, sociology, education and politics. The accompanying note is clear: ”Like a tree, eugenics draws its materials from many sources and organizes them into an harmonious entity.” As the official logo of the two international congresses on eugenics held in New York in 1921 and 1932, this tree captured the attention of hundreds of scientists and participants attending these major events. That it was represented as a synthesis of all scientific, social, religious, cultural and political activities is only one of the signs explaining the longevity of eugenics. The other is the credibility of the Western scientific tradition into which it was planted by Francis Galton during the 1860s and 1870s. Nurtured by scientists devoted to race improvement, the tree of eugenics grew stronger and stronger, reaching maturity during the 1930s. After the Holocaust, the tree was denuded of its branches, but its roots remained buried deep, embedded in our society, culture and politics. They continued to provide sustenance to various social, economic, and educational policies across the world. The time has come to cut down this tree and remove its global roots. The personal and collective reckoning with the legacies of eugenics can then begin.