January 12, 2024

'Unhoused' exhibit at Mütter Museum explores homelessness as public health issue

The display features signs and portraits, along with statistics and quotes from Philadelphians living on the streets

By Kristin Hunt
PhillyVoice Staff

Kristin Hunt/PhillyVoice

For more than 30 years, artist Willie Baronet has bought signs from unhoused people. They are included in a new exhibit on homelessness at the Mütter Museum.

In scraps of cardboard that line a wall inside the Mütter Museum, unhoused people plead for help.

The signs, collected over three decades by artist Willie Baronet, vary widely in color and tone. Some are terse descriptions of the holder's plight: "Cold," "Hungry," "Shipwrecked." Others are longer, posing a question or joke to passersby. "Need strength to fight off other hobos!" one reads in all caps.

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Baronet's signs, which he bought off unhoused people around the country, are one of the centerpieces of the Mütter Museum's latest exhibit. Opening Saturday, "Unhoused: Personal Stories and Public Health" explores homelessness as a health issue and crisis of empathy.

"'Unhoused: Personal Stories and Public Health' aims to make the invisible visible again," Kate Quinn, executive director of the museum, said Friday. "It explores the difficult truth that simply being without a home is a dangerous health condition."

"Unhoused" also includes numerous black-and-white portraits of homeless people, shot by Canadian artist Leah den Book. Her "Humanizing the Homeless" series has spawned a popular Instagram account and four books, which will be available for purchase in the museum gift shop.

Provided image/Leah den Bok/Mütter Museum

Leah den Bok's long-running 'Humanizing the Homeless' project features portraits of unhoused people, like Melissa, pictured above.

For the exhibit, the Mütter Museum consulted with Dr. Rosie Frasso, the program director for public health at Thomas Jefferson University. Quotes from homeless Philadelphians, collected from interviews by Frasso's students, are featured on plaques along the walls.

Those plaques also include worrying statistics on homelessness and mental health and substance use disorders among them. In a November report, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development recorded about 653,100 people experiencing homelessness. Of them, roughly 21% suffered from severe mental illness and about 17% had a chronic substance use disorder.

"Researchers can shed light on an issue, measure it, weigh it — while artists can bring an issue into the light, setting the stage for broader conversation," Frasso said. "When researchers and artists work together, they expand their individual capacities to bring about change."

The Mütter Museum invites visitors to share their thoughts through prompts like "What could you do to help unhoused people?" on the walls. Post-It replies can be left on the blank space below.

"Unhoused: Personal Stories and Public Health" runs through Aug. 5 in the Thomson Gallery. It is included with regular admission.