Thirteenth International Conference on The Image

Abstract

Souvenirs are everywhere. Their ability to encapsulate the image of a city and to evoke memories of it make them desirable, treasured, and ubiquitous objects. And yet, despite their commemorative powers, souvenirs present all but an accurate depiction of a city and, as such, they contribute to a distorted, incomplete, and often problematic view of that place. After all, who gets to decide which scenes, which buildings, and whose stories are worth being represented in them? This paper argues that, given the current landscape of sociopolitical reckoning, the images and objects of souvenirs ought to be mobilized to redirect the tourist gaze towards pressing issues that affect the everyday of the city’s residents. Through a series of photomontages and illustrations, this paper explores how souvenirs from New Orleans can be revisited to bring attention to, disseminate knowledge of, and generate discourse about the realities confronted every day by local residents. Ranging from infrastructural issues to race relations, the proposed images and artifacts masquerade as souvenirs to infiltrate and exploit the cycle of media consumption and production and captivate a wide-reaching audience. By operating within the realm of realism through photomontage and appropriation, these objects speculate on a new breed of activism, which reconstitutes the role of the souvenir and that of its audience, encouraging them to go from passive consumers to active agents of change.