This collage was created by Claire Scafidi, a third-year SPIA student from Kennesaw, Georgia, who is majoring in International Affairs, Latin American
and Caribbean Studies, and Spanish, while also pursuing a minor in Studio Art. Working at the intersection of policy and creative practice, Claire brought both perspectives to the development of this piece.
The idea behind the artwork was to create a collage of places that represent SPIA—built not from reproduced images, but from SPIA’s own history. Claire worked with real materials pulled from the school’s past, including brochures, magazines, maps, invitations, photographs, newspaper articles, and other archival pieces. Each element was carefully cut out, layered, and glued together by hand.
As the collage took shape, familiar SPIA spaces and symbols emerged, constructed entirely from the materials that once documented the school’s people, programs, and ideas. Every fragment carries its own story, coming together to form a shared visual history that is both personal and collective. The original artwork will be displayed in a SPIA building, returning these pieces of SPIA’s past to the space they represent and allowing history, creativity, and student work to live together in one place.
