“The Unworthy”
New permanent exhibition – for youth and adults
New permanent Exhibiton
It is August 1900. Fourteen-year-old Rasmine is admitted to the Poorhouse. She has come under police suspicion and is accused of exposing others to syphilis. Rasmine is sentenced to five-day prison terms. The case has no consequences for the men involved. While in custody, Rasmine discovers that she is pregnant.
Rasmine is one of five men and women whose life stories you can experience in the authentic surroundings of the institution. The people admitted to the Poorhouse are individuals whose voices have largely gone unheard throughout history. As a result, they occupy only a small place in our shared history and in the historical records that survive.
Why does Rasmine end up at the Poorhouse? Does she manage to escape poverty? Through immersive audio narratives, we paint a portrait of Rasmine as a person while you stand in the washroom, the garden, and the very spaces where she spent her daily life during her stay at the Poorhouse.
At the end of the experience, you can come face to face with the fourteen-year-old Rasmine in a lifelike animated recreation created by the animation studio Tumblehead.
Before, During and After the Poorhouse
Rasmine and the other men and women all spent time at the Poorhouse – whether for shorter or longer periods, or on several occasions – while it was in operation between 1872 and 1974.
Today, almost anything can be found online with just a few clicks, including information about a person’s family and working life.
That is not the case for the people who were admitted to the Poorhouse. Reconstructing their stories has required seven to eight months of extensive research. During that time, the museum’s staff delved into archival records from prisons, institutions, poor relief authorities, hospitals and psychiatric hospitals.
Every case file, prison register, witness statement, newspaper article and census record has brought us closer to Rasmine and the other people whose stories are told in the exhibition, enabling us to share their lives in the authentic surroundings of the Poorhouse.
Thank you
The exhibition is supported by the Augustinus Foundation, the Aage and Johanne Louis-Hansen Foundation, the Sportgoods Foundation, the Knud Højgaard Foundation, the William Demant Foundation, and the Ole Kirk Foundation.
The exhibition was curated by Museum Curator Jeppe Wichmann Dam Rasmussen. Exhibition design was created by Kurtzweil; exhibition films were produced by Goodwill; lighting design was provided by Lystek; audio stories were produced by Ulla Stories; and animations were created by Tumblehead.
Photo: Andreas Benthien