Collaborative Dialogues Between Souvenirs and Territories: From Evocative Objects to Experience-Objects

Enhancing the widespread cultural heritages of our territories is not only a moral imperative and respect for the values established over time but an increasingly felt need to direct local development towards more sustainable strategies for the environment and communities. The culture of design, especially in Italy, has questioned what its disciplinary contribution can be, in addition to the specialist approaches such as exhibition, communication or lighting design. In national financed research carried out precisely on these themes (D.Cult research: Design for the enhancement of cultural heritage. Project strategies, tools, and methodologies, 2002/04), two elements emerged that managed to briefly define the operational and strategic characteristics of design in this field: the planning of experiences and relationships. In this contribution, the attention is to the role of souvenirs in these systems: from iconic objects, often of low material and aesthetic quality, they can instead play a significant role in the processes of use and design-driven enhancement. From an evolved perspective, designing a souvenir means establishing a synergistic and cohesive relationship with the territories and their values. Not only with the tangible cultural aspects of the natural and artificial landscape, historical and artistic testimonies, and material culture but also with the rich intangible heritage made up of knowledge, traditions, and know-how. And it can take on different roles in product, storytelling, communication strategy and activation of experiences. In this way, the souvenir becomes a “touchpoint” of a territorial development strategy that relates different cultural systems and brings value to local economic and production chains, even those not directly linked to tourism, such as the many forms of material and cultural production, typical of that context. Through analyzing some exemplary case studies and presenting some design experiences, we will draw a map of the possible “connective” roles of meaning and actions that a new generation of souvenirs could interpret.