Souvenir

A gift ( to French souvenir, remember 'in the definition, memento ', then special, gift ' ) is an object that one takes and kept as a memory of a particular event, a place or a person. The word comes from the French term memory, remembrance there. In contrast to a trophy souvenirs are usually purchased.

Often people put themselves and others as a souvenir from the holiday with. This is then often something typical of the country. Also cups ( Sammeltasse ), T -shirts, ashtrays, key rings, salt and pepper shakers, floor nails, etc. with name printing of the places visited or pictures of them are popular souvenirs. In many holiday destinations, the sale of souvenirs to tourists now a fixed source of income for the locals dar.

Popular souvenirs are also miniatures known buildings such as the Eiffel Tower, the Brandenburg Gate, the Cologne Cathedral, etc.

Souvenirs hurt when tourists take cultural treasures, rare animals, plants, or even "just" stones. Some states provide for severe penalties for the unauthorized export of such pieces. In the context may confuse that often can hardly be genuine cultural goods (for example, antique pieces ) differ from specially made as souvenirs copies.

There are also souvenir is sometimes used jokingly, as can a sunburn be an unpleasant souvenir from the south, even a pregnancy mean a lifetime keepsake.

Reception in the Art

The American pop singer Bill Ramsey landed with his song Souvenirs, souvenirs in 1959 a big hit. The text describes in an ironic way the essence of souvenirs.

Artistically placed the artist duo Andreas Eucker and Frank -Udo Tielmann deals with the souvenir. At the Kunsthalle Bielefeld in 1992 they placed an octagonal pavilion in which they draped souvenirs industrially manufactured. They instructed by a consistent Selbstverkitschung to the link between tourism, art and kitsch art of the museums themselves. The differentiation between the original and souvenir was lifted. The exhibits were acquired in identical form at the kiosk in the museum.

The Museum of Applied Art and the Museum of Communication in Frankfurt am Main had word with a rich catalog until autumn 2006 a joint exhibition of these crutches of memory.

Sociology and Psychology of souvenirs

Not per se souvenirs are available for purchase. As findings about (for example, beachcombing, stones, paint chips or broken- fragments from known structures ) they constitute their meaning by the attribution of the souvenir owner, and are therefore not as such be seen generally as souvenirs. The preference of such memory appears to be associated with a delineation of the commercialized souvenir industry.

Very often the nature of a souvenir souvenirs is exceeded. Thus, a souvenir about the same time a devotional object ( which was acquired in a place of pilgrimage ) or include a political statement. For example, about a miniature of the Voortrekkerdenkmals in Pretoria an expression for the "white " South Africa to be.