Celia Shaheen
Celia Shaheen
Stamps Forty Acres Scholarship, Supported by the College of Fine Arts
Forty Acres Scholars Class of 2019
Hometown
Plano, TX
High School
Plano West Senior High School

I love libraries, archives, gardens, cooking, and making books. I want to get better at making things out of clay, modifying my clothes, reading 16th century manuscripts, journaling, and playing my trombone more often. At the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, I work in the department of photography as a Mellon Undergraduate Curatorial Fellow, where I assist senior curator Malcolm Daniel in collections archiving and cataloging, exhibition research, and department acquisitions. Alongside my interests in curation, I work as a research assistant and intern at the Harry Ransom Center, a humanities archive and library in Austin, in the department of Description & Access, Print & Published Media. As a curatorial officer for the Center Space Project, the student-run organization of the Visual Art Center gallery, I assist in the curation and installation of exhibitions, as well as the facilitation of events and dialogues between students, curators, critics, gallerists, and artists. My studio practice focuses on intersections between photography, printmaking, textiles, and bookmaking, and actively engages with my curatorial and archival research.

Majors:

Studio Art; Art History; Interdisciplinary Certificate in Museum Studies

Other Academic Interests:

Information studies; Botany; Women and Gender Studies; Middle Eastern Studies; Textiles and Apparel

Extracurricular Activities:

2017 - Center Space Project: Curatoral Officer; 2017-2018 Research Assistant & Intern: Description & Access, Print/Published Media- Harry Ransom Center; 2016-2018 Andrew W. Mellon Undergraduate Curatorial Fellow - Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; 2016-2017 Senior Student Associate: Gabriel García Márquez Archive - Harry Ransom Center; 2016 Summer Workshop for Students Program Assistant - The Warehouse, Dallas; 2016 Summer Intern - Mckinney Avenue Contemporary (The MAC), Dallas; 2015 Interim Visitor Services - Dallas Contemporary; 2015 Summer Curatorial Intern - Dallas Contemporary; 2015 Preservation Guild Intern - Landmarks, Austin, Texas

What drew you to the Forty Acres Scholars Program (FASP)?

I was drawn to the Forty Acres Scholar Program because of the opportunities it gives to scholars to enhance and expand their education beyond classes and beyond Austin. The enrichment funds and the chance to go abroad are incredibly valuable. In the summer of 2017, I was able to use enrichment funds to travel to North Carolina and take a textiles workshop at the Penland School of Crafts, which ended up being one of the most wonderful and invigorating artistic experiences that I’ve had.