Artist Salome Asega presents Little Wheel Souvenirs, a participatory replica casino floor and gift shop. Visitors are invited to play a round of roulette that sends them into the galleries to seek out specific artworks. They are then encouraged to create their own miniature take-home souvenirs.
Asega, who was invited to collaborate with MoMA’s Department of Education as part of the Catalyst Program, is interested in how visitors see and interpret works of art. Little Wheel Souvenirs is inspired by her own experience growing up in Las Vegas, where casinos create environments that simulate foreign locations and present copies of famous works of art. In considering how reproductions of art both reflect and affect social and cultural values, Asega asks: How does producing and circulating reproductions create opportunities for audiences? What harm does it do?
Salome Asega is an artist and researcher based in Brooklyn. She is currently a Technology Fellow in the Ford Foundation’s Creativity and Free Expression program, and is director of partnerships at POWRPLNT, a collaborative digital art lab in Brooklyn. Asega has participated in residencies and fellowships with Eyebeam, the New Museum, the Laundromat Project, and Recess. She has exhibited and given presentations at the Shanghai Biennale, Performa, EYEO, and the Brooklyn Museum. Asega received her MFA in design and technology from Parsons at the New School, where she also teaches.
