Artigianati.com

For travellers, a souvenir is a local gift, a beautiful memento, or a curio bought for its shock value. But for indigenous peoples around the world, creating souvenir art can be a matter of cultural and economic survival, with traditional crafts adapted for tourists and collectors, while inspiring artists in faraway countries. The Devon Guild of Craftsmen prove this with Token Values, a new exhibition of ethnographic objects loaned from Exeter's Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM). Works on display from far-flung corners of the globe, include Peruvian earrings made out of iridescent beetles, jewellery bands worn by nomads in Oman, and a beautiful 19th century Japanese vase that could have influenced art deco.....

Read more at -  http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/jul/23/token-values-souvenir-art-exhibition