Dr Waratah Lahy, of the ANU School of Art, has been awarded an Australia Council grant to undertake a residency in Paris.

Waratah will research in museums, galleries, libraries and popular tourist sites to explore the history of souvenirs and souvenir paraphernalia in Paris. This research will focus on souvenirs that idealise physical and emotional aspects of popular culture as well as those that incorporate the use of materials which contributes to their symbolic and sentimental value.

"The primary souvenir that I will research is the snowdome which appears to have orginated in France in the 1870’s," she says.

"My fascination with snowdomes relates to the way in which they function as a space of imagining: looking into a snowdome requires the viewer to imagine themselves within the confines of that space – an imagined world, silent and separate from our own."