Raheleh Filsoofi

Raheleh Filsoofi

Assistant Professor in Ceramics
S Family Dean’s Faculty Fellow in Race, Racial Justice, and Social Justice

Office Hours: Wednesdays 11a.m.-12 p.m. and by appointment
130 Ceramics at E. Bronson Ingram Studio Building
Phone: 305-299-9395
Email: Raheleh.filsoofi@vanderbilt.edu
Website
Creative Pedagogy
Curatorial

Education
MFA, 2014 Ceramics, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL.
BFA, 1999 Studio and Craft, Al-Zahra University, Tehran, Iran.

Specialization
Interdisciplinary Practice and Pedagogy, Ceramics

Biography

Filsoofi is collector of soil and sound, an itinerant artist, and a feminist curator. Her geographical, disciplinary, and conceptual practice take on critical narratives about movement, immigration, and social activism. Clay and sound are the nexus of her practice and act as expressive mediums, with their cryptic and architectural qualities engendering new narratives through diverse aesthetic strategies such as multimedia installations and immersive sound performances. Her art disrupts the borders that exist between us and seeks a more inclusive world, illuminating and challenging policies and politics.  

Her current and recent exhibitions include Imagined Boundaries, an interactive multimedia installation at Gibbes Museum in Charleston, SC (2023-2024), and Only Sound Remains, an interactive multimedia installation at the Sharjah Biennial 15, Thinking Historically in the Present in Sharjah, UAE (2023).

Filsoofi’s Imagined Boundaries a multimedia installation, consisting of two separate exhibitions, debuted concurrently in a solo exhibition at the Abad Gallery in Tehran and group exhibition Dual Frequency at the Art and Culture Center of Hollywood, Florida in 2017. The installation in each country connected audiences in the U.S. and Iran for few hours in the night of the show opening. 

Raheleh’s project, ‘Listening: The Fourth String,’ in collaboration with musician Reza Filsoofi, introduces an interactive instrument and platform called ShahTár. Through public performances, it highlights the contributions of the silenced Iranian musician and Sufi, Moshtagh Ali Shah, to music while emphasizing the power of listening to drive community engagement and promote social change.

Raheleh’s recently received the Tennessee Art Commission Grant for her project The Resonance of the Lands: Finding Identity and Place in Tennessee Through Clay, Music, and Community. This project represents her collaboration with musicians, immigrants, and refugees in Nashville. It involves mapping and extracting clay from different locations in the city to craft 25 clay instruments inspired by the Middle Eastern clay darbuka. Through interactive workshops and performances, participants define their connection to the land, acknowledge their history within Nashville’s social-political landscape, and unite their voices in empowering community performances.

She has been the 2022 Winner of the1858 Contemporary Southern Art Award and the recipient of the 2021 Southern Prize Tennessee State Fellowship. She is an Assistant Professor of Ceramics in the Department of Art at Vanderbilt University and holds the secondary appointment at the Blair School of Music. She received her M.F.A. in Fine Arts from Florida Atlantic University and a B.F.A. in Ceramics from Al-Zahra University in Tehran, Iran.

Selected Recent Exhibitions
Solo Exhibition by Invitation, Inh(a/i)bited, Interactive Multimedia Installation, Curated by Anthony Spinello, Spinello Project Gallery, Miami, FL. (2020)

Solo Exhibition by Invitation, The Overview Effect, Interactive Multimedia Installation, Betty Foy Sanders Gallery, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA. (2019)

Group Exhibition by Invitation, Halal, Ceramics and Light in Work Up, Curated by David Christopher Terry and Sharon Louden, C24 Gallery, New York, NY. (2019)

Images of work:

Selected Awards

• 2023 Tennessee Arts Commission Grant Recipient
• The Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation Grant, in Collaboration with Dr. Katherine McAllen for Curatorial Project “Uncovered Space” in International Museum of Art and Science and University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, McAllen, TX (2020)
• The 2021 NCECA Helene Zucker Seeman Curatorial, Research, and Critical Writing Fellowship for Women. (2021)
• “The Outstanding International Female Faculty Award”, University of Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg, TX. (2019)
• Distinguished Iranian American Woman of the Year Award, In Appreciation for Outstanding Accomplishments and Positive Impact to the South Florida Community, Iranian- American Foundation, Coral Gables Club, Miami, FL. (2018)

South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship Award for Visual and Media Artists Regional Juried Application. (2017)

Selected Press, Publication

Teaching Art From Distance Could have Benefits, Hyperallergic, March 25, 2020.

https://hyperallergic.com/549058/distance-learning-and-teaching-art-covid-19/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=sf

Whitney jones, Featured: Raheleh Filsoofi’s ‘On Transcending the Inh(a/i)bited Space’ Exhibition, Cfile Edited by Garth Clark, January 16, 2019. https://cfileonline.org/feature-raheleh-filsoofis-on-transcending-the-inhabited-space-exhibition/