SOUVENIR STUDIES (PARIS)

2024 (work in progress)
video (7:30 min)

During my residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, I began tracing the trajectory of an image. In parallel, I traveled to China: to Yiwu, a center of global mass production, and to Tianducheng near Hangzhou, an urban landscape that imitates Paris.

The iconic Eiffel Tower keychain is sold in Paris but has been predominantly produced in China for decades, where it is typically traded only in large quantities. As a souvenir, the tower circulates globally and becomes increasingly detached from its site.

In Tianducheng, a 108-meter replica stands at the center of a reconstructed Parisian cityscape. Between original, copy, and souvenir, scale, function, and meaning begin to shift.

SOUVENIR STUDIES (PARIS) follows these movements between Paris and China while asking: Do we travel the world in search of authenticity only to find ourselves in what we already know? What happens if the souvenir becomes the destination? Is the replica a symbol of admiration for Paris or an expression of China’s capacity to reproduce — and perhaps even surpass — Western icons? Can a souvenir be a fragment of a place that does not exist, a memory stitched together from fragments?