Blog Deeply Emotional Making Histories Super Diversity May13 2016, Amsterdam

Upcoming project: souvenirs

The final months New Europeans Elisa and Tessa will work on their project ‘Souvenirs’, which aims at collecting various souvenirs from Europe and the stories that relate to them. Read more about it below and see if you can add your story!

When we think of a souvenir, we often think about kitschy style objects that we take home from vacation: a miniature Eiffel Tower keychain from France, a double-decker bus model from England to stick on the fridge at home, or a Pope bottle opener from the Vatican. But a souvenir in its original meaning is much more; the Oxford Dictionary describes it as ‘a thing that is kept as a reminder of a person, place, or event’. A souvenir is about memory and recollection. It is an object laden with emotional associations, related to a local context, to histories and to people.

"a souvenir is a thing that is kept as a reminder of a person, place, or event"

Therefore, we want to tell stories about Europe through souvenirs. They can be related to important historical events, or to small personal ones. They can be long and short, the only criterion we use is that they have to relate to Europe. We will use an old analog Bolex camera to capture the nostalgia of the objects and record the stories that accompany them. Rather then tell the stories of how Europe should be, as often is done by politicians, we aim to show the actual narratives that make Europe as we know it.

Do you think you have a story that fits our project? Please let us know by sending an e-mail to hello@neweuropeans.org with ‘SOUVENIR’ in the title.

 

 

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