In these highly touristy places, one cannot help but think of the countless souvenir shops whose similarity makes it hard to distinguish them. Whether you find yourself in Brussels, in Rome or Belgrade, you are sold mugs, t-shirts, magnets and all these things that tell the same old story. But can we really consume the memory of a country and its people?

This is the story of ‘Collection Collective’, a souvenir shop whose story is told and experienced together. 

Collection Collective presented a selection of artists who deal, each in their own way, with the memories that run through our lives.

With his digital installation ‘The Mind is a Voice, The Voice is Blind’, the young Austrian artist Simon Lehner takes us inside a digital reconstruction of traumatic memories from his childhood. Lehner compares the digital post-production process to the constant unconscious reconfiguration of our own personal memories.

Belgian artist Estelle Saignes unveils her tapestry ‘Green Lake that Memory Smell’. In it, she constantly revisits a specific artificial lake in the United States, in search of a match between the physical landscape and the relationship to it through its memory.

In her photographic installation ‘Time spent that might otherwise be forgotten’, the American artist Diane Mayer pursues the thread of our memories through a disturbing mixture of wool and family photographs.

Finally, the Belgian artist Louise Devin closes this narrative by taking us to her ‘Final Corner’, a double-edged cemetery that looks as tender as it is cruel.

This art project also aimed to combine the practice of professionals with that of citizens in order to create, together, a shop of shared memories. For two years, four groups designed their representation of a memory: 

- Alongside a professional ceramist, a group of young girls from a youth centre in Les Marolles created an object materialising one of their memories in ceramic. 

- Alongside photographers, a group of young adults gave new life to diapositives abandoned on the Place du Jeu de Balle market. 

- A group of senior citizens, together with illustrators, engraved a souvenir of their neighbourhood on upcycled coasters.

- Alongside designers, a group of adults made a flower carpet in tufting, inspired by the one on the Grand Place.

This participative project allowed a group of young girls from the youth center MJ88 in the Marolles district to learn ceramics and to create an object representing a childhood memory. The precious moments of those workshops, led by a professional ceramist, Anaid Moh, were recorded thanks to Cédrine and the precious help of Ben, the founder of Kimia Studios.

Click here to listen to the recording.

Souvenirs Souverres” is one of the participatory projects presented at the heart of the exhibition. In the busy streets of Les Marolles, we went to visit isolated elderly people who have lived most of their lives in this neighbourhood. From these encounters, we came back sometimes laughing and often with tears in our eyes. The project had already begun. 

The testimonies were recorded and transcribed by a volunteer teenager living in the neighbourhood. One of the many tattoo artists in the neighbourhood then illustrated the memory. The whole thing was printed on coasters made of clean cardboard waste. Once collected, these precious items only needed to be distributed in the neighbourhood’s bars, cafes and restaurants so that they would never be forgotten. 

A project carried out in collaboration with Habitat et Rénovation (PCS Radis-Marolles and Querelle), Maison Vésale, Home des Ursulines and Home Sainte Monique.

Click HERE to read the full testimonials and HERE to see the flash illustrations made for each memory.