Souvenirs: these strange objects are quintessential symbols of places known to all and visited by millions of people every year. Despite their representational value, these shoddy goodies are not manufactured in the countries where they are sold, and their trade is often conducted by foreign communities, who are also strangers to bits of history they are marketing. 

Is a souvenir the quintessence of an experience and an emotion? Has the meaning of a souvenir changed over time? Who is a souvenir really meant for? Does it encapsulate the complexity of the travel experience through the most extreme formal trivialisation? Does the form of the souvenir object have to be emblematic, does it have to embody the essential, to give free rein to the imagination and to reminiscence? Does it still make sense to identify a place with architectural and artistic symbols? What does it mean today to take(away) a souvenir of a trip? How does cultural specificity circulate through the large-scale global production of consumer goods? 

Whereas in other cultures it is inappropriate to remember an intense experience, is not a souvenir as we understand it here a form of shared memory? Are not these objects that are supposed to come from all over the world, and which impose themselves on our minds as emblems of culture and history, ultimately a manifestation of Western cultural hegemony?