Faculty in the news: United States Artists announce 2026 Fellows – includes Raheleh Filsoofi
Overview
United States Artists supports Artists and their essential role in society. Each year, USA honors artists and cultural practitioners at all career stages, in all disciplines, throughout all of the United States and its island jurisdictions.
The USA Fellowship awards artists and collaboratives across the following disciplines: Architecture & Design, Craft, Dance, Film, Media, Music, Theater & Performance, Traditional Arts, Visual Art, and Writing. In addition to $50,000 in unrestricted funding, USA provides access to tailored services such as financial planning, career consulting, legal advice, and personal care.
Nomination and Selection
A diverse and rotating group of arts professionals, including creative practitioners, anonymously nominate artists and collaboratives to apply each year. Our network of nominators identifies artists who demonstrate artistic integrity and make significant contributions to our ecosystem. Ten panels review applications and identify finalists, which are then approved by our Board of Trustees.
Among the announced 2026 fellows – a list that includes many notable names in the art world including Edra Soto, Mendi + Keith Obadike (both former Studio VU guest lecturers) – is the Vanderbilt University Department of Art’s – Raheleh Filsoofi.
“Through the collection of clay and the creation of clay dust prints, I transform earth’s residue into an immersive language and an elemental script of memory and migration.” – Raheleh Filsoofi
Raheleh Filsoofi, a collector of soil and sound, is an itinerant artist and community advocate. Filsoofi’s work revolves around themes of movement, immigration, and social activism. Clay and sound serve as her primary expressive mediums, enabling her to create diverse narratives through 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.
Filsoofi has exhibited nationally and internationally. Recent and upcoming exhibitions and performances include works at the Nasher Museum of Art (Durham, NC, 2026), the Frist Art Museum (Nashville, TN, 2026), Telfair Museums (Savannah, GA, 2025), the Gibbes Museum of Art (Charleston, SC, 2024), Untitled Art (Miami Beach, FL, 2024), and Sharjah Biennial 15 (Sharjah, UAE, 2023). She is the curator of the inaugural Clay Performance program at National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) 2026, establishing a new performance-focused initiative within the conference.
She is the 2025 recipient of the NCECA Innovator Award, the 2025 recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Art Projects Grant, the 2023 recipient of the Joan Mitchell Fellowship, the 2022 winner of the 1858 Contemporary Southern Art Award, and the 2021 recipient of the Southern Prize Tennessee State Fellowship. She is an Assistant Professor of Ceramics in the Department of Art at Vanderbilt University and holds a secondary appointment at the Blair School of Music. Filsoofi received her MFA in Fine Arts from Florida Atlantic University and a BFA in Ceramics from Al-Zahra University in Tehran, Iran.
Donor –This award was generously supported by donors of the USA Fellowship Awards program