University/City (2 of 5)
University/City (2 of 5)
- Creator: Stephanie Bacon
- Date: 2014
- Location: Boise City Hall, 1st Floor, Arts & History, Work Room, Unit H, Shelf/Drawer 3, Slot/Box 6
- Types: collages (visual works)
- Materials: paper (fiber product), mixed media
- Collection: Visual Chronicle Collection
Stephanie Bacon welcomed the opportunity to make work specifically for her adopted home, the City of Boise; and yet Bacon reflected that her whole experience of the city was mediated through her experience as a faculty member at Boise State University—the job that brought her here and structured her time. Bacon considered that a university is a sort of specialized city within a city, and that its faculty (drawn from myriad places) bring their own universities with them, in their training and their expectations of what a university is. The culture of the city informs the university, through the influence of students and the community; and the university contributes its streams of study to the life of the city. Bacon's way of working involves collage-drawing, in which formal structure, found and created imagery, writing and color are incorporated in successive, translucent layers. This process is an analogy for thought, that begins with suppositions, develops associations, allows wanderings and ultimately arrives at a new constellation of meaning. Bacon selected five other universities in their distinctive cities, to consider in relation to our city, her university. In each case Bacon began with a rough map of the city of Boise, with the shape and size of its campus denoted. Next, she overlaid a rough map of each secondary city, with the size and shape of its campus denoted, matching the first map in scale. Through imagery and writing Bacon explored her associations with the other university/city pairings and looked for differences and commonalities. The sites she chose for this exploration were her beloved Chicago (University of Chicago) where she earned her undergraduate degree; multicultural Brooklyn (Brooklyn College) where she earned her graduate degree; Coimbra, Portugal (Universidade de Coimbra ) an ancient city with a medieval university on a hilltop in its center; Leiden, Netherlands (Universiteit Leiden) tolerant birthplace of Botany; and Mexico City (Universidad Nacional Autonóma de México) revolutionizing site of activism, art and science. Many more could be included; these are places Bacon has been, places her mind has been, places she has brought here with her.
