I suppose there are two types of souvenirs that we can pick up while traveling: mass-manufactured tchotchkes like fridge magnets or snow globes, or local artisan-made trinkets and wares. The latter has come to represent cultures outside of their locales, an opportunity for tourists to take a little bit of their experiences with them home.

Louisa Eunice writing in Design Observer:

The souvenir industry, though vital for many local economies, has long been accused of flattening cultural complexity into digestible clichés, transforming sacred objects into décor, and replacing sustainable materials with cheaper alternatives to meet demand. Yet for countless artisans, participation in that market remains a practical act of endurance: a way to keep culture visible in a world that might otherwise forget it.

So on the flip side, though these souvenirs reduce the cultures of those places to a carved giraffe, sculpted clay bird, or ceremonial mask, I would argue that at least the artifacts can spark conversation.

The fact that a mask can be both a ritual object for the local artisan who made it and a decorative item for the tourist who bought it says more about resilience than dilution. It reveals how objects can inhabit multiple meanings without losing their essence. What we often call “appropriation” may, in these moments, also be adaptation, a negotiation that allows heritage to stay visible, if altered, in the modern world. 

To understand souvenirs this way is to see them not as hollow tokens but as collaborations: between maker and buyer, local and global, art and economy. When tourists view these pieces as design legacies — works that carry labor, history, and symbolism — the exchange becomes more than commercial. It becomes cultural continuity in motion.