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Image Credits: Henrik Rieß

Souvenirs always tell two stories at once: the personal memory of how an object came into our possession – and the story of the place it comes from, its culture, and the people who made it (Koppenwaller, 2019).

In the project 'Souvenirs of Elsewheres & Elsewhens', design students speculate on keepsakes from the turn of the 22nd century – souvenirs that originate not only from other places, but from a time other than our own. These objects ask what people will want to remember once economic, ecological, and technological paradigms have fundamentally shifted.

The works are not intended as concrete solutions. Rather, they act as proxy artifacts of alternative futures: prompts for societal debates about the seemingly impossible in the face of global crises, and invitations to question our learned notions of reality. The project's theoretical foundation lies in critical design research, drawing on 'Speculative Everything' (2013) and 'Not Here, Not Now' (2025) by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby.

The speculative journey leads to seven places across different continents – from North and South America via Antarctica to Southeast Asia. Each project condenses its future scenario into a souvenir, made tangible through radical storytelling techniques and aesthetics. In telling these stories, all media and materials are treated as equally valid.

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