The souvenir. The trinkets people buy as a memento for themselves or others on their travels. These are the objects we buy to remind us of a particular time, place, person, or moment we wish to remember. It is tangible evidence of our experiences.
Tourists’ expenditures for shopping account for 30% to 33 % of their total travel spending (1). Whether people buy magnets, antiques, bracelets, or household goods on their travels, people are compelled to bring something back with them. Remembering the stories over time is difficult, but it is the feel, smell, and touch of things that trigger a memory.
Memory is the encounter “between the embodied human being and the inanimate thing that occasions the act of remembrance” (2). Physical objects can protect the memories of important events, such as vacations, and memories of people. Souvenirs act as a facilitator of memory. Sitting on shelves or in drawers, the souvenirs people buy become the vehicles of time travel, helping us relive memories of places, events, feelings, and people we have experienced.
Explore the memories of visitors to our harvest from the travels they took though time.
1. Litirell, M. A., Baizerman, S., Kean, R., Gahring, S., Niemeyer, S., Reilly, R., & Stout, J. "Souvenirs and Tourism Styles." Journal of Travel Research 33, no. 1 (1994): 3–11, https://doi.org/10.1177/004728759403300101.
2. László Munteán, Liedeke Plate, and Anneke Smelik. "Things to Remember," in Materializing Memory in Art and Popular Culture, ed. László Munteán, Liedeke Plate, and Anneke Smelik, (New York: Routledge, 2017), 2.
Credits
Kaitlin Pottier and Ciara Koepke