Less Is Ore

Abstract

Every object, every artefact, in any case, searched or not, wanted or not, inevitably has multiple meanings and connotations. Are the little objects that we buy and bring along during our journeys, the so-called souvenirs, a design matter? In particular, when relating them to specific sorts of journeys, such as faith-based ones and pilgrimages, where do we orient our shopping experience and quality expectation, and with which purposes we associate this category of purchases within the delivery of immaterial values through material culture? The paper wishes to investigate the topic of gift-gifting culture and souvenirs connecting it, particularly, to religious cultural heritage and local lore dissemination. The paper, in fact, aims to open a necessary debate about the unavoidable aesthetic basis that interests these artefacts, connecting it with the affordance of sustainability in production and consumption, largely intended. A novel sight on the issue is offered through a theoretical discourse, centred on the Three Monotheistic Religions, and the provision of a case study, matter of a new-born wider research project and two scholarly conversations upon religious souvenirs, rosaries and related items at their very core, Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompei Shrine, in Italy. The very aim of this article is to let consciousness and awareness arise, about the mandatory demand of quality fulfilment and design-driven culture in this particular kind of products.