Where From / Where To?

What is home —a place, a memory, a person, a rupture, a return, a dream? Where From / Where To? is a collaborative ekphrasis exhibition that invites visual artists and writers from the Santa Clara University (SCU) campus community to explore the idea of home as both anchor and horizon. In late fall quarter, the SCU community was invited to submit visual artworks for consideration, with the prompt of seeking works that reflect the lived, imagined, contested, and ever-shifting meanings of home: where we come from, where we are now, and where we might be heading. Artists were encouraged to interpret “home” expansively, personally, and critically. Submissions were juried by de Saisset Museum Staff (Ciara Ennis, Director & Chief Curator; Lauren Baines, Assistant Director; and Chris Sicat, Senior Manager of Exhibitions and Operations) with Assistant Professor Miah Jeffra, Department of English. The final selection includes works by 29 artists spanning undergraduate students, graduate students, staff, faculty, and administration. Selected artworks were then paired with the 20 students in Jeffra’s winter course ENGL 74 New Forms for Creative Writing, as well as several faculty members from the Department of English, who wrote ekphrastic texts—poems, short prose, hybrid forms—in response to visual artworks. Writers did not know the identities of the visual artists, nor were they given the titles of the artworks. Their texts respond only to the visual impact of the physical compositions. The resulting collection of writings have been compiled into the anthology, featured here. In this installation, the artworks and texts are presented as both independent entities and interconnected expressions. Where From / Where To? is co-curated by Miah Jeffra, Assistant Professor, Department of English and Lauren Baines, Assistant Director, de Saisset Museum and is presented as part of the Museum’s Faculty-Driven Exhibitions series. Pictured: Olivia Gonzalez, Tierra y Luz, Sea and Blooms (2025); Jamie-May Minjie, Duologue with the Supreme (2025), Emmanuel Aboagye, Flower Girl (2025). Images courtesy of the artists.