Gabrielle Christiansen
Gabrielle Christiansen is an art and education advocate currently studying modern and contemporary American art at Northwestern University. Her present research centers on vernacular art environments and the historiography of self-taught artmaking in the 20th and 21st century United States, with particular attention to the ways in which self-taught work and its collection intersects with class, environmental, and carceral (in)justices. In addition to being a doctoral student, Gabrielle works as an education coordinator for the Prison + Neighborhood Arts/Education Project, which has led her to research and writing projects related to art and abolitionist political advocacy. She has worked for a number of Midwestern museums, including the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Chicago History Museum, and the Roger Brown Study Collection. Gabrielle received her MA in Modern and Contemporary Art History from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2020, after which she served in a year-long project to document and condition-report notable artworks on Chicago Public School campuses.