Raheleh Filsoofi

Assistant Professor of Art
Secondary appointment, Blair School of Music

Raheleh Filsoofi is collector of soil and sound, an itinerant artist, feminist curator and community advocate. 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 (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, The Resonance of the Lands, in collaboration with musician Reza Filsoofi, brought together immigrant and refugee communities in Nashville. Contributing to the "City of Music," the project involved creating over 30 ceramic instruments, inspired by the Darbuka and drums of the Middle East and Africa, using clay sourced from various locations around Nashville. Through community-engaged workshops, drum circles, and performances, the initiative fostered community involvement and promoted social change through the collective effort of creating ceramic instruments.

Raheleh is the 2023 recipient of Joan Mitchell Fellowship award, 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.