Meshac Gaba

Meshac Gaba, Souvenir Palace, 2010. Image courtesy of the artist, Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town and Galleria Artra, Milan

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In his work, Meschac Gaba (b.1961, Benin) uses systems of trade and exchange to highlight, critique and overturn perceived noition of cultural identity. Socially and politically critical and yet lighthearted and humerous, his works focus in particular on the cultural and economic codes of exchange between Africa and the West. His major work, The Museum of Contemporary African Art was a gradually evolving migratory juseum complete with shop, restaurant, library and music room. Gaba himself acted as curator and directos, as well as cook, fashion designer, librarian and musician.

For Re: Thinking Trade, Gaba created an open, performative space in which the experience of belonging is continuously transforming: adapted, renegotiated and rearranged. Here, he created a souvenir ‘shop’ with a twist. 

Unlike the tourist stands found at airports and train stations, Souvenir Palace displayed regular souvenir trinkets alongside the accumulated detritus of everyday life: Union Jack flags and key rings with old footballs, doors, windows and shoes. This diversity was matched by a corresponding variety of national identities: each object on display was painted in the colours of a different national flag. More than a simple shop, the work functioned as a trading post. Visitors were invited to bring along their own items to be painted and swapped for those on display. The work reinstated a sense of personal investment, imagination and fun into the monotonous serialisation and commodification of nationalistic symbols. Rather than relying on souvenirs that are state-sanctioned or mass-produced, individuals could celebrate their cultural origins as they wish, using items of personal value, or the familiar, everyday objects encountered in the surrounding environment.

In essence, the work offered an alternative, in microcosm, to an established world system. In Souvenir Palace, economic standards were overturned and notions of cultural belonging were not dictated or fixed, but open to reinterpretation, transformation and exchange.

Meshac Gaba at Liverpool Biennial 2010

Souvenir Palace, 2010
Mixed media installation
Exhibited at 52 Renshaw Street