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Raheleh Filsoofi is an Iranian multidisciplinary artist based out of Nashville, Tennessee. She is a professor of ceramics at Vanderbilt University and Lead Faculty member of the Chautauqua Visual Arts School, her work contemplates the effects of marginalization and the occupation of geographic and socio-political liminal space, often using sound and soil. With roots in ceramics, Filsoofi uses the aesthetic approach of symmetry to embody these concurrent challenges of her identity in both Iran and the United States.

Early life and education
Filsoofi’s early life was characterized by pre-revolution Iran, with the war between Iran and Iraq following in 1980-1988. Part of a generation of Iranians that developed an advanced auditory system in response to the country’s unrest, Filsoofi grew up amidst a soundscape that included warning sirens, helicopters, and marching soldiers. However, sounds of prayer from the nearby mosque, Persian music, and poetry also permeated Filsoofi’s early years, influencing the artist heavily. Filsoofi left Iran at 26, immigrating to the United States where she pursued a career in art. Despite fleeing the country, she was not able to live a free and unrestricted life in the United States due to her status as an immigrant even after gaining U.S. citizenship.

She holds an M.F.A. from Florida Atlantic University and a B.F.A. from Al-Zahra University in Tehran, Iran.

Imagined Boundaries (2017)
Filsoofi’s project Imagined Boundaries, consisting of two separate exhibitions, debuted synchronously in a solo exhibition at the Abad Art Gallery in Tehran and a group exhibition (Dual Frequency) at the Art and Culture Center of Hollywood, Florida in 2017. Drawing on an expansive archive of Middle Eastern art and history, the exhibition featured an installation of white box vessels that connected audiences in the U.S. and Iran through digital interfaces on the nights of the show openings. Each box had a cutout of a traditional Iranian shape drawn from visuals that can be traced back to the Music Room of Ali Qapu Palace in Isfahan. Made to facilitate intercultural dialogue, Imagined Boundaries was inspired by the Safa Khaneh community in Isfahan in the early 1900s. This “House of Friendship” is regarded as one of the first interfaith centres in the world.

BITE (2021)
BITE, is a performance by Raheleh Filsoofi in which the artist imprints a clay plate with her teeth to create a decorative pattern. A commentary on colonial narrative, Filsoofi creates her own artifact as a way to value marginalized existences. The act is both labor and ritual as Filsoofi offers her body as a tool to embed identity in the soil of the earth.

Odyssey (2022)
Filsoofi’s series of rotating, jump roping self-portraits pays tribute to the artist’s foundations in ceramics; with origins in the phenakistoscopes developed by Joseph Plateau in 1841, as well as ceramic plates from 10th-century Islamic art, Filsoofi uses this traditional style of ceramics amidst a digital age. Also imitating the spinning globe or the rotary movement of a potter’s wheel, these animations are a direct commentary on place and belonging at both a global and interpersonal level.

Awards and honors

 * 2023 MacDowell Fellowship
 * 2023 Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship
 * 1858 Prize for Contemporary Southern Art by Gibbes Museum of Art in 2022.
 * Southern Prize Tennessee State Fellowship, 2021