The purpose of this study is to analyze different aspects of a portraying of individuals from a time past. It is concentrated around questions about why it is important to show the people?s stories in, for example, exhibitions and under which conditions this would serve as a good use of history according to different theories about history and the portraying of it.I have chosen the theories of Freidrich Nietzsche and Georg Simmel as a tool to analyze different aspects of the portraying of people from the past. Nietzsche?s theory about the different ways in which we use the past and Simmels theory about the meeting between a viewer and a cultural experience.