Tourist Tat

Travelling can lead one to undiscovered treasures. Tourist tat* is a discovery of these 'treasures'. It is a collection of photographs from my travels around the world, focusing on what must be a billion dollar industry. We visit and we buy, some of the most kitsch and audacious memorabilia around simply because we visited or went somewhere. With the traditional vacation values that are held across the world, we save a bit for ourselves and we also bring a bit home for our family and friends. There they sit in gaudy glory, gathering dust on a shelf somewhere. The displays that confront us on our travels are an assault on the senses, the colours and the cheesiness of it all. The sheer volumes of these products peddled every day are surely a strain on the environment and earths resources! But beyond the tourist mafia, these products start to bring a smile to ones face. They offer interesting new creations, blending colours, shapes and patterns into a new vision and art form. These photographs explore these new artistic creations, offering the viewer a different view of some of the finest collections of tat I have come across, taking the Kitsch into a an art form. *Tat - a term, found particularly in England, referring to anything which appears shabby, cheap and tasteless.