Top: What if you put a toy gun into the Utopian world of a snowglobe? Bottom: How many Eiffel Towers does it take to make a memory?

As part of the Passionswege component of Vienna Design Week, Julia Landsiedl, a designer based in Vienna with an eye for storytelling and creating playful products worked with Erwin Perzy's Original Wiener Schneekugeln - the original snow globe makers based in Vienna.

Julia created experiments based on the story of the originator of the SchneeKugeln, Erwin Perzy, and how he came about inventing and making this Utopian world in the snow. With her 'Wunderliche Kugelkammer' [Fantastic Global Curio Cabinet] Julia explored the origins of Baroque curiosity cabinets and our desire to conserve and restore our memories. She questioned the psychological meanings behind these lucky charms and asked poetic questions with her experiments.

What kind of Utopian world exists in the snow globe? Do these snow globes encapsulate our hopes and fears? What 'ingredients' are needed to make a snow globe popular and collectible?

Popular motifs of famous places and people of Vienna from the Erwin Perzy's Original Wiener Schneekugeln collection

Established in 1900, Erwin Perzy is now in its third generation of snow globe makers and the great-grandson continues today to create hand painted motifs of romantic couples in the snow, the Eiffel tower in wintertime, Santa Claus in his sleigh and other symbolic charms and motifs.

From the Erwin Perzy's Original Wiener Schneekugeln collection