ATTENTION! The temporary exhibition is closed due to water-damage after cloudburst 2 July 2011

27 January - 30 July 2011

The forthcoming special exhibition at The Workers’ Museum A taste of Europe - Eastern Europeans Working in Danish Agriculture samples European food and takes the temperature of the labour market in which this food is produced.

Taking pigs as our point of departure we examine both culinary culture and food production. Why do we eat the way we do? Who are those thousands of workers from Eastern Europe who produce our pigs?

By drawing a historical parallel to the large immigration waves into agriculture around 1900, the exhibition takes up a more general discussion of some major present-day political issues in the Danish labour market and for the welfare state – issues that will be examined in further detail in lectures and workshops.

Danish culinary culture – why do we eat the way we do?

Who produces our food and why do they do it?

By focusing on working life and production, A Taste of Europe takes on another meaning: we look at the effects of developments in the European labour market where open borders and a number of special arrangements have led to a situation in which 20 per cent of the workers employed on Danish pig farms have come from Eastern Europe.

In their search for ‘the good life’, education, human challenges and material security, Ukrainians, Romanians, Balts, and Poles flock to large and modernized Western European farms. In its forthcoming exhibition by means of specific personalized portraits, the Workers’ Musuem seeks to provide a clear impression of what life is like for some of these new workers in the Danish labour market.

Among the things we are going to take a look at are the ways in which the life concepts of the individual Eastern European worker fit in with the needs of the farming sector, the trade unions, and the state, and at the conflicts that seem to exist between the interests of the various players.

Seen from a historical perspective

By placing present-day migratory work in the perspective of the large-scale waves of immigrants from Poland around 1900, the exhibition sheds light on the phenomenon and invites spectators to actively make up their minds about some of the issues raised by the exhibition.

Is it okay to hire Eastern European workers at a lower rate of pay? Who is responsible when someone leaves their children and family in Romania to go abroad to earn money? Eastern Europeans themselves? Farmers? The State? The consumers? – and how much are you yourself willing to pay for a pork chop? Have you thought about the impact of your own culinary habits and the demand for cheap pork?

The special exhibition is shown at the Workers’ Museum from 27 January – 31 July 2011. Subsequently the exhibition will be shown at Dansk Landbrugsmuseum Gl. Estrup.

The exhibition is sponsored by: