Sticky Fingers BCN

Hands up whoever has bought a souvenir while on holidays. Maybe an ugly one, maybe a kitschy one, maybe something that you thought looked kinda cool in the shop and then looked awful once you got home. What attracts us to buying mementos of our holidays? Is it to remind us of the good time that we had? To remember a specific place, moment or country? To smile every time that we look at the object because there’s life outside of the usual grind of going to work everyday?

Beginning last July 16th and until the 13th of December, an exhibition titled “The Souvenir Effect. Travel fetishes, beyond the clichés”, curated by Oscar Guayabero, is being held at the Disseny Hub Barcelona which used to be the old Textile Museum in Borne. Located in front of the Picasso Museum and with the loveliest café – restaurant, this collection of odd objects, video installations, photos and explications tries to delve a bit deeper into why the phenomenon of the souvenir exists.

Anyone who is curious about this subject should definitely check it out, it is also completely bizarre. Not to be missed is the baseball cap in red and yellow that displays the word Barcelona embroidered on it yet has a picture of Madrid’s Cibeles. How many confused tourists have searched for the Cibeles in vain here in Barcelona? Is it an inside joke or a 2 x 1 souvenir? Simply a mistake?

The video installations are engaging and funny. There are four in total, one showing excerpts from films about holiday memories by Andrés Hispano Corache, another which transports the viewer to a gondola in Las Vegas, by Diller+Scofidio, (I won’t say anything more about that one, as it’s so life-like for many reasons that people get dizzy). The third installation is a “little shop of souvenir horrors” and is obsessive and addictive in a good way. The last video concerns home-made videos of people on holidays and is a right laugh. These last two have been created by Frankie De Leonardis and Mich Micenmacher, who capture sensations and concepts with complete accuracy.

One of the greatest things about the exhibition is right at the beginning, in the first room. (I almost had to sit down, from the head rush). There are several different objects on display that have become souvenirs in their own right, representing a precise city and concept. To represent the city of New York, as well as eroticism, a beautiful pair of Manolo Blahnik heels. But not just any pair, an exact replica of the heels that Carrie Bradshaw wears in Sex & the City: The Movie. The pair that Mr. Big places on Carrie’s foot to seal the deal of getting married. Royal blue with a diamanté adornment on the toe. Stellar moment to see those shoes.

All in all, a great experience. The pity is that the innovative souvenirs that have been proposed as alternatives which are displayed almost at the end are not on sale in the museum shop. I’ll have to keep my souvenirs in the photographic eye of my mind and continue to hope that there will be many trips and exhibitions in the future.

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Barcelona, Borne, cibeles, DHUB, las vegas, manolo blahnik, picasso museum, souvenirs, Textile Museum, video installations

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