ENGAGE To actively participate. To do something. Differs from "to observe".
EXPERIENCE An activity in which a person is engaged in and through which there is some sort of transformation in the end.
PERCEPTION Perception is the process through which we make sense of the world, by actively filtering all the information that reaches to our senses.
PLACE “A space endowed with a sense, in other words, a space that is meaningful to someone". Ezio Manzini
TRAVEL To be immersed in a place where you don’t belong to but willing to engage (in opposition to tourists who don’t engage).
TRAVELER Travelers are those who want to engage and explore places, normally but not necessarily, those places where they don’t belong to. Travelers are the ones who seek.
TO BELONG To be inherently part of and to have deep connections with and a great understanding of.
SOUVENIR Objects acquired or collected with the purpose of reminding the owner of a place. They represent the intersection between people and place / They are the materialization of the relationship between a person and a place / Thy materialize the intersection between people and place.
The Island: Resistance against the Corporate Feudalism
It is the year of 2084. Humans dependence level on technology are now so high that governments have became insignificant and the world is mostly ruled by big tech corporations, that together are known as the Platform. Capitalism is now in the past and the world’s new ruling regime is the Corporate Feudalism. Most humans now live on Android’s Land, Apple’s Clouds or Windows Fields. Behavioral and geolocation technologies are so developed that they have controlled all of human's free will.
It’s not that we don’t have the opt out of this system. We do, just as much as we once in the Western world had the option of living without emails or smartphones. But how could we live without them? In the Corporate Feudalism world, humans have lost the ability to navigate in the world on their own. We barely have to. We can travel wherever we want to using virtual reality devices that simulate not only sights but audio, smell and touch. And driverless cars we’ll take us where we need to go by calculating the best routes depending not only on the flow and avoiding traffic, but also depending on our mood, and choosing the best views to be seen. The sea level has risen, and the Platform has built walls to prevent mass inundations . Although these might have prevented migrations, no one could ever see the ocean again. Almost anyone. The system hasn’t dominated the whole planet though. There’s the Island still. The place where those that have never surrendered and those that have opted out the system live.
(Map used to navigate in the Island)
The Local - A testimony to the Platform’s Psychiatrist
Dear Dr. Bot,
I have only 27 minutes to write before I go to sleep. My melatonin levels are running low and if I don’t go to sleep before 9 I will loose efficiency points.
Today B quit. He’s moving to Apple’s Land because they analyzed his genetic material and traced a better plan for his life there. We’ll see… We agreed on virtual meeting soon so he can show me around. It’s great that I can use technology to visit him nowadays! Imagine if I had to literally go all the way there just to see it around.
I really like B. Too bad that the Platform didn’t match our profiles and we can’t stay together… I guess it wouldn’t work anyway, the Platform knows us better than we do.
Actually, after work today, my car drove me home through a different route, by the Old Sea Shore. I guess it was because I was a little sad… So bad that we have to be sad to be driven by the Sea Shore. The whiteness of dam walls make me think of how fragile our lives are. All of this would be under water now if the Platform had not built this dam for us. Old “Governments" would never have been able to build it quickly enough when the sea levels started rising. I think they send us here so we can appreciate this and feel better again.
I wonder what people liked so much to do on the sea shore back in the day. When I ask it, the Platform shows me photos of semi naked crowds, all so close to each other, with so much litter around them. It seems like hell on Earth, so why did they keep going there?
It seems like all New York used to be a dirty place back in the day actually, I can barely imagine. The Platform show me all these photos of dirty train cars and traffic… Luckily we don’t have that anymore. But sometimes this place makes me bored. I wonder all the other things I’m missing in NY that were not programmed to me. But I shouldn’t complain… After all I could quit anytime, go to Apple’s Land like B, or even opt out of the System and move to the Island. It’s just that I’m so used to it here, a new land would have to learn all my patterns again. And the Island…! Oh no, too messy and too much work - how do they do it without a Platform to rely on?
Can’t wait for B to show me Apple’s Clouds around. I’ll post my impressions when it does.
Alright, time’s up. Wish you a good night.
S.
The Emigrant - A love letter.
Dear S.
Sorry it took me so long to write you. But I never went to the Apple’s Clouds. It was all a lie. I left to the Island. I’ve been trying to reach out for you all this time but my messages are prioritized so low on your to-do list that you probably never got to them. I had to find someone who could encrypt in a way that would move higher on your list. Hope you get to this one this time.
The Island is actually much bigger than what you could possibly imagine. It’s all around you. You just can’t see it because you’re trapped in Android's Land. Or the Apples’s Clouds. Or the Window’s Fields. These Platforms location systems and behavioral prediction got so good you just never ran into each other again.
The Island, as they call it it’s actually all that’s behind the scenes.
Don’t get me wrong, life’s not that easy outside. We have to be much more aware all the time so we don’t get lost. But the good thing is that we have tools and technology that helps us amplify our senses to navigate. I can smell things again! And though it’s very weird at first I now love it. Some parts of the city smell so bad, they hide it from you by keeping your Driver window's shut tight. But sometimes when I’m happy I go to the Old Sea Shore and climb to the dam. There are lots of stairs for you to climb to the top, you just can’t see them, L.
But anyways, when I’m up there, I can smell the ocean, and there’s nothing better than that. The sound of the ocean is also great. It makes all the rest worth it. I swim sometimes, when it’s hot. And when it’s cold, I just watch the ocean.
You know those photos they show you of thousands people on the sea shore? I guess I understand them a little better now. Last week I went on a day boat trip to where Coney Island used to be. You can still see the tower and some of the old roller coasters above the sea level. Some people live there actually, they claim to be sea people. They use clothing that make them look like mermaids to swim better and they have so that they can stay underwater for long time. Some of them working by cleaning up all the pollution the Platforms create. I don’t understand them completely. I guess I still would rather live on the land but I’m glad they can be there and I could meet them. I brought you a little souvenir from the sea people. I made it with them while I was there actually.
I left it by your door but you’ll only be able to see it if you leave the Platform. You’ll be able to use it to find me. That’s how we move around in the Island - using our senses and our memory. We use souvenirs to help activate the memory of our experiences and so we can find the places we’re looking for.
I know the platform thinks we’re not meant to be. I can’t say for sure but I’d love to give it a try. I think we can create a place for us.
Hope to see you soon.
B.
News from the Island
News from the Island is a speculative newspaper created from the point of view of the Islanders. The front page tells news from this place, through which we can understand how people there live, how they communicate with the Platform, how is the environment. To create a scenario like this is helpful for a better understanding of what’s at stake in this context. The left page contains an ad campaign for a campaign that the Island would be taking on ___ in order to attract more volunteers that help protect and expand the Island borders. Called Mappers, these volunteers are explorers that look for unclaimed parts of the Platform order to guarantee the sovereignty of the Island. They use a code to mark their discoveries. This code has the same visual structure of the physical map the character has gifted his lover. All Islanders carry with them a flash of dark light. When they throw this light at the map sign, they will reveal the coded instructions left by mappers and they will be able to navigate from that point, to the next mark.
An experience, according to John Dewey, is different than the experiences we have on everyday basis. An experience is what causes fulfillment. Regular experiences are the interaction of people and their surroundings. An experience, however, has an esthetic quality to it, is qualified with emotions and reveal a conscious intent. A meaningful experience is comprised of doing and undergoing.
In the context of art, which is the subject of Dewey’s exploration, doing is traditionally connected to the act of making the artwork itself. It is the action of the artist. Undergoing, on the other hand, is traditionally understood as the action of the audience. The reception of the work of art. The author argues, though, that both doing and undergoing exist in the acts of making art and in the action of seeing art.
In the first scenario, the artist work is constantly permeated with the making of the art and the artist’s own perception of what she or he is doing. The artist will stop making when he perceives the work as being good. The same logic applies to the audience. The receiver has to work back almost like the artist in organizing the art as to create meaning to it. To undergo an experience is also an action of doing.
"An experience … is not just doing and undergoing in alternation, but consists of them in relationship."
It is a good balance between doing and undergoing that creates a meaningful experience:
"Experiences are also cut short from maturing by excess of receptivity. What is prized is then the mere undergoing of this and that, irrespective of perception of any meaning. The crowding together of as many impressions as possible is thought to be 'life', even though no one of them is more than a flitting and a sipping. The sentimentalist and the day-dreamer may have more fancies and impressions passion through their consciousness than has the man who is animated by lust for action. But his experience is equally distorted, because nothing takes root in mind when there is no balance between doing and receiving.”
These two parameters can easily be extrapolated to any experience out of the Art world. In fact, Dewey says they are necessary to any experience, even the experience of lifting a heavy stone. "A man does something; he lifts, let us say, a stone. In consequence he undergoes, suffers, something: the weight strain texture of the surface of the thmg lifted. The properties thus undergone determine further doing. The stone is too heavy or too angular, not solid enough; or else the properties undergone show it is fit for the use for which it is intended. The process continues until a mutual adaptation of the self and the object emerges and that particular experience comes to a close. What is true of this simple instance is true, as to form, of every experience. The creature operating may be a thinker in his study and the environment with which he interacts may consist of ideas instead of a stone. But interaction of the two constitutes the total experience that is had, and the close which completes it is the institution of a felt harmony".
In this case, how can these concepts be applied to the experience of travel/places? Travel is, at a first glance an activity ___ (better word) people undergo more than something people do. If the tourist is that immersed in a place where you don’t belong to, then it is what how people undergo that experience (and therefore also what people do in) this place that can transform the tourist experience into an experience: transform tourism into travel.
" Perception is an act of the going-out of energy in order to receive, not a withholding of energy. To steep ourselves in a subject-matter we have first to plunge into it. When we are only passive to a scene, it overwhelms us and, for lack of answering activity we do not perceive that which bear us down. We must summon energy and pitch it at a responsive key to take in. "
The design work presented ahead in this book varies a lot in the tone and in disciplines ___ (better word), but a common thread to all the product offerings and experiences is that they aim to stimulate a more comprehensive perception of places. For perception to be more than recognition one must do something and then interpret the consequences of this action.
(All quotes by John Dewey, Art as an Experience)
Boym is a Russian-american designer based in New York and currently the chair of the Industrial Design at the Pratt Institute. Having lived in three different countries before the age of thirty, in the book Keepsake he affirms a belief that object's can represent a person's life. (Keepsake, p.6)
These objects became an important part of his career as a designer. Since 1985 he along with his partner Laurene Leon Boym have developed several different collections of souvenirs that make critical comments on contemporary culture. Babel blocks, for example, celebrate the best of New York City, which in their point of view, is its people. Colorful wooden toys represent some of the most prevalent ethnic and cultural groups that inhabit in this city. Missing
Monuments represent "famous structures that do not exist in real life" (p.73) and transform the meaning of souvenirs since the "replica becomes the sole material thing that represents a grand project" (p.73). And finally, probably his most famous series are the Souvenirs for Disaster, that reflect on how we remember some of the most remarkable and influential events of humanity's recent history. In this last series, the duo build on the typology of monument miniatures and create a series of small buildings that have staged recent catastrophic events. They created souvenirs for controversial events such as 9/11 and the capture of Osama Bin Laden.
When we spoke, Boym highlighted to me the challenges of using design, specially Product Design, as a language to reflexion on culture. We are used to see filmmakers, artists or architects making critical projects but Design is still seen only as a commercial activity that only provides the world with functional, aesthetically pleasing products.
To illustrate this he brought up the 9/11 Memorial example. As most museums, it has (as it’s expected) a gift shop at the end of the experience. What should a Memorial be selling as reminders of the event? Is it fair for the memorial to exploit the memory of an event that has ended the live of many people and changed the course of history for financial purposes - even if the profit coming from these sales will support the museum itself and therefore help perpetuate an event that can’t be forgotten? Boym recalled that there has been enormous press on several attempts of the creation of souvenirs for this purpose, condemning the museum of profiting on the memory of such sad events.
The problem, he said, is when the souvenir trivializes the theme. This process of “trivialization" normally comes from the combination of the memory with a functional object. For example, a 9/11 towel or a pencil. The everyday life aspect of the certain objects seem to lower the importance of the subject instead of putting it in a space of contemplation. When there’s no function though, for example in the case of miniatures or even posters, then the object puts the subject in a place for contemplation and reflection.
Souvenir typologies create the frame for this reflections to exist. One of the reasons Boym considers why souvenir for disasters were so successful is that they exist in a typology. And typologies serve the purpose of collections and collectors. People recognize the typology and then understand what is the twist or what is specific about that one. Typologies establish a syntax for the content. What changes is the content but the language is the same.
The importance of collections has been brought to me before during some users interviews. When they travel they know what they are looking for. The typology is predetermined and they only have to look for the most appealing or interesting content. In the case of the souvenirs of Disaster, Boym says that it will catch the attention of the miniature collection, that has never seen anything like that specify souvenir before. Whereas if you try to create something completely new, then the lack of precedent will make the message hard to understand.
Finally Boym and I talked about some of the Product offerings that I have been designing. He pointed out that the objects are missing rituals. Because the intention behind the souvenirs that I’ve been suggesting is that they “stimulate more comprehensive perception of places”, Boym asked me what are the rituals that surround the capture of those moments. I shouldn't just affirm that people will collect pieces of saffron and put them in little jars, and it has to be more than pressing a button he said, referring to the audio recorders.
Summarizing, there are three important aspects that I have to consider when thinking of souvenirs: Function and no function, Typologies and Collections, Rituals. These three aspects will have to be contemplated on all my design work that will be presented in the following pages.
My conversation with Boym also made me realize that maybe my work is not about souvenirs but it uses souvenirs as a medium and metaphors to communicate a set of values and stimulate (or reflect on) certain behaviors.
There's a lot to reflect on.
No matter where we travel to, chances are we’ll be able to find similar souvenir typologies with just depicted themes varying from one place to another.
Below I’m trying to list some of these typologies:
PostcardsSnowglobesArchitecturalMiniaturesAcrylicPaperweightT-shirtsMagnetsKeychainsMugsShot GlassTravelogues 3D Puzzle miniaturesPencilsPens...
Typologies exist to suggest a collection. If a traveler collects snow globes, he or she will always look for a post card wherever they go to. One of my interviewees, Isabella, says that her preference for postcards for example makes it easy for her when on a trip because she knows what she’s looking for to buy and doesn’t have to think too much about it. Other travelers, more avid, said similar things. Ricardo (CONFIRMAR) brings always magnets and postcards. Thaís, a scarf. Julia, some sort of talisman, Hen Chung, magnets (the only intentional souvenir she ever buys, because of a personal history). Some of them seem to appreciate intentional souvenirs, but most seem to create their own categories.
A souvenir shop is frequently packed with these objects. From the lowest to the highest-end souvenir shop (to use New York as an example, let’s say a Chinatown store to a MoMA store) all of them are packed with souvenirs. It seems like for them to be desirable or commercial they have to be sold like that.
Souvenir typologies create a familiar frame to which people can frame the experience and possess the place.
“Temporally, the souvenir moves history into a private time. Hence the absolute appropriateness of the souvenir as calendar” (On Longing, p. 138)
The typology function as the grid of this calendar that side by side tells one’s life history by enumerating their remarkable experiences.
Souvenirs typologies also represent the attempt to possess that place. I've been there, I’ve experienced it, and now it also belongs to me. The moment of the purchase in the case of the mass-produced object represents the transformation of the generic object into private possession. “a complex process of captioning and display which repeats this transformation of public into private”. It is also in the moment of the purchase, or the moment of the collection, the pick up, when the meaning of the souvenir is attributed. That’s when it stops being the generic representation of a place (in the case of the intentional, designed souvenirs) or something that serves another function or no function at all (the notebooks or the sea shells), and it becomes the container of your own experience in that place. This is likely one of the reasons why intentional, mass-produced souvenirs are frequently seen as fragile containers of memories, meaningless objects. The process of acquiring them is too easy and bland. Generally, it is the same process all around the world. A simple exchange of money will give you the container for a memory. But because the process of attribution of a meaning to the object is, for the lack of a better word, meaningless, the connection of the object with the memory will be fragile and eventually it will become meaningless or just another tchotchke.
Therefore, in order to reimagine souvenirs, it seems appropriate to explore the typology of the souvenirs, reimagining the moment where the memory is created and attached to the object. The object will only acquire a meaning if the process is an experience we undergo and we do.
Souvenirs exist at the intersection of people, places and perception. They come to this project as a way to materialize such abstract concepts.
Souvenirs can be intentional or unintentional.
Unintentional souvenirs are objects that are kept by the owner as a token of a certain period of time or of a place, but that were not conceived with that purpose. Constantin Boym call these objects “mementos” (Curious Boym, p. 71). They can range from seashells, stones, or anything that is found, to functional objects like a notebook or a toy that is bought with the intention of serving as a souvenir but were not manufacture with that purpose. To build on the notebook example, a notebook with tour Eiffel on the cover sold on a gift shop in the 7th arrondissement can be considered a intentional souvenir of Paris. However a regular notebook, with a certain pattern in the cover that a traveler buys and keeps it in the shelf as a token of a day in Paris is an unintentional souvenir, or a memento, because the notebook was not designed with that purpose.
Susan Stewart (On Longing, p. 138) differentiates between of exterior sights, often representations and re purchasable, and souvenirs of individual experience, which are “samples and are not available as general consumer goods”.
Intentional Souvenirs are designed to represent a certain aspect of a place or a culture and evoke the experience of the place itself. Before being acquired or gifted to someone, souvenirs speak about the designer's intention (or lack of) in choosing that element to be representative of a location. The most important characteristic of this group though is that they were conceived and manufactured with the sole purpose of serving as a souvenir and be sold to tourists as a token to the memories of a certain place.
Imagine archeologists of the future finding souvenirs of the Empire State out of the context of a store or someone’s home. They’ll be able to infer when they were made by analyzing the materiality of the object, the manufacture process, etc, but they’ll know little about what the object represent at this given time. No clear function is expressed by the form of the object. In fact, souvenirs have no function other than cultural or eventually social. Therefore, they are complex objects. As Boym says (Curious Boym, p.70) souvenirs “can carry complex layers of information, from “programmed” messages to personal sentiments.
A designed souvenir is trying to communicate to the buyer a certain understanding of a place and influence the buyer’s perception of it. A miniature of the Statue of Liberty for instance is categorizing that structure as worth remembering. It is also validating the official story of the place, the one that the monument is trying to tell.
When I interviewed Hen Chung, from RAD AND HUNGRY, I asked her about how she felt about souvenirs that are designed with the intention of being souvenirs. She promptly answered she didn’t like them because these objects were trying to convey a certain pre conceived perception of that place on her.
In fact, for the good o the bad, that’s what most souvenirs are attempting to do. They are communication objects.
Most common souvenirs that one can find in gift shops in touristic destinations do exactly that. Without a deeper analysis or thought though, they basically represent the most iconic elements, reproducing a place’s history that is shallow and easy to be told. By isolating easily recognizable elements of a place and a culture, they tend to reproduce stereotypical images.
Throughout recent years some designers and artists have been attempting to create souvenirs that aim to communicate a more complex understanding of the addressed places. These examples will be further analyzed later on on this work, in the on the Audience/ Market/ Precedent chapter, but for now is worth saying that some of these have a more critical approach like Constantin Boym's Souvenirs for Disaster while some are just bringing to light frequently unnoticed or unvalued aspects of a place, like London’s Create Souvenirs project.
For the purpose of this work souvenirs will be defined as representations of a certain perception of places. (of the relationships we establish with certain places). By themselves, they are empty containers, ready to be filled with memories of our experiences.
Further on, no differentiation will be made between intentional and unintentional souvenirs unless it’s absolutely necessary or pertinent. Normally the context will be enough for understanding of which category I’ll be talking about. In fact, the design work further presented here makes an effort to combine both experiences.
Here and there is a travel guide that creates micro connections between two individuals through the exchange of physical maps. Through this platform, users can acquire maps from different cities in the world that have been customized by other users, primarily local inhabitants of that place but also from other travelers.
One key aspect of this service is that it allows the user to choose the some of the characteristics and personality of the person that has made the map. So you’ll know if you’re getting to know New York, for instance, from the perspective of a Graphic Designer, a marathoner or a Star Wars addicted. H&T is the anti-yelp. It helps inform people and travelers about special unique places in a city without making they popularity grow too fast. It’s a one on one experience from travelers to locals and locals to travelers.
It works like this: The traveler accesses H&T website. They will first pick a destination. Then they choose whose maps they want to receive. This choice will be made based on the mapper's age, profession, general preferences and maybe even zodiac. The traveler pays, let’s say, $25 and has three maps delivered to their door. Two of the maps will be filled with the other persons recommendations of your destination. The other map will be blank and will showcase the traveler's own hometown.
Travelers can now fill their hometown map with their preferences and send it back to H&T. If Traveler’s successfully mail the map back to H&T, they will receive $10 back. H&T will proceed by scanning the original map and add it to the stock, making it available for the next travelers that access the system and feeding the feedback loop that keeps this system alive.
I've been dealing with a lot of abstract concepts in my thesis (perception, place, what does all of that mean?).
This semester I've been writing about the definition of these terms and how they're relevant to my work. Plus, I've been trying to make my design interventions very straightforward, so that they stand by themselves without too much explanation. The most conceptual layers are underlying and connecting all the projects in one.
The book will be key to express all of that and all the reading and so I organized the skeleton of the work below.
One thing I noticed that should be on my book is the role of the designer in all of these. Because I'm so immersed in the design world, and in the Products of Design methodology, I forget to talk about design. But what is my contribution to the design world with this work? And how do I see my work as a designer. One thing that needs to be clear, for the purpose of this work, is that I am not acting within the "Problem Solving" realm, but rather in the "Sense Making" realm.
More to be blogged about this soon. Meanwhile, the book structure:
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
- Why
- Personal Motivations
- Objectives
- What
- How
METHODOLOGY
PoD’s methodology
RESEARCH
- On Perception
- On Place
- Travel as an experience
- On Souvenirs (the intersection)
- Design and it all (making sense of things)
MAYBES {
- On Topophilia
- On Nostalgia
- On Culture and Movement (globalization x diversity)
- Coney Island as a case study
}
AUDIENCE / MARKETS
- On Travelers
Users Interviews
- Precedents:
BSB
RAH
BOYM
MAYBE {
London Olympics
Guia Sentimental de SP
Liene Bosque
Liz … RCA
}
LENSES 1: Previous Work - Stimulating Perception
- Workshop
- Travel Machines
- A Travel Guide to Anywhere
- Elsewhere Experience
LENSES 2: Souvenirs
- Souvenirs Typologies and Metaphors
- The Snow Globe
- Postcards
- Magnets
- Photograph
- Building Blocks
RAD AND HUNGRY - precedent research and interview.
RAD AND HUNGRY is a subscription based service that delivers its customers low-fi office supplies from different places of the world on a monthly basis.I have recently talked to Hen, one of the projects' creators.
Every month she travels to a different country and sources a variety of local notebooks, pens, pencils, envelopes, and other office supplies. These products are packed and shipped to their customers as a kit.When we talked - and I confirmed this later when I received my first STMT (Something Mighty) kit - Hen explained to me that each STMT kit is almost like a novel, a memoir of her experience in the place she travelled to.
Along with office supplies, each kit comes with a series of other surprises that help shape the narrative. In the case of the Croatia kit that I purchased, I received a notebook, pencils, envelopes, a business card with paper clips from other countries from her 2015 tour (this made me think if Brazil’s huge paper clips are symptomatic of our excessive bureaucracy, but that’s another story…), a poster, and a letter, all beautifully wrapped in brown paper.For Hen it is important for to include surprises in the kit because that’s what travels are all about. You can read and research as much as you want about a place, but in the end you’ll always be surprised.
From a Product Design point of view, all these elements surrounding the product itself, which is not much more than international office supplies, are transformed in a true experience - which is what we are really interested in when we purchase a product, at the end of the day.STMT kits are like souvenirs of places you have never been to. There’s a bit of narrative in the letter through which you establish a personal connection with the travelers; you feel some of the materiality of the destination through the office supplies, the texture of the paper and pencils; the culture of the place is shown on the colors and typography of the supplies; and you get to be part of this experience with the membership card. And everything is unified with beautiful and cohesive graphics.
But most important is the time in which the user is engaged with all these elements while doing something: opening the package, reading the letter and putting the pieces of the story together. To have a true experience, like John Dewey would say, we need to make things. That is how we learn. RAD AND HUNGRY makes Hen both a user and a specialist in souvenirs, which the topic I’m doing researching for my thesis. Hen also considers herself a Souvenir hoarder, so we talked a much about them.
Most of what Hen collects are what Constantin Boym would call "Mementos": objects collected by travelers but that were not designed with the intention of being souvenirs. Office supplies for example, are manufactured to fulfill an office need, but because they’re so ubiquitous objects, they unintentionally represent characteristics of the places where they’re made, and thus allow Hen to use them to reconnect to these places.
Hen says that designed souvenirs, or souvenirs made with the intention of being souvenirs, are trying to create a predetermined perception of a place. She believes that souvenirs should instead reflect your own experience and therefore your own perception of that place.
But memories, she says, last forever – or until they’re forgotten. And it’s important for her to revisit her souvenirs every once in a while to think of the experiences she had, so that the power of souvenir is always recharged.
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