(Un)Grounded: Raheleh Filsoofi
May 30 to September 7, 2025 Jepson Center
Image: Raheleh Filsoofi collecting clay from areas around Herb Creek in April 2024
(Un)Grounded, a solo exhibition of new work by Iranian-American artist Raheleh Filsoofi, is an immersive multimedia installation of ceramic vessels, sound, and video in conversation with the pottery and landscapes on view in The Moss Mystique: Southern Women and Newcomb Pottery. Over the past two years, Filsoofi has traveled to nine states in the Southeast to collect soil, including a visit to Savannah in April 2024. She has carefully archived, processed, and extracted the clay from these locations to form the physical and symbolic content of her multidisciplinary practice. Embracing her movement as a woman and immigrant within the region, (Un)Grounded considers the legacies of Newcomb Pottery through Filsoofi’s personal identity to engage with present-day perceptions surrounding southern identity, transience, and meanings of authenticity.
About the Artist:
Raheleh Filsoofi is a collector of soil and sound, an itinerant artist, feminist curator, and community advocate. She is an Assistant Professor of Ceramics in the Department of Art at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN and holds the secondary appointment at the Blair School of Music. Filsoofi is the 2023 recipient of Joan Mitchell Fellowship award, the 2022 Winner of the 1858 Contemporary Southern Art Award, and the recipient of the 2021 Southern Prize Tennessee State Fellowship. She received her MFA in fine arts from Florida Atlantic University and a BFA in ceramics from Al-Zahra University in Tehran, Iran.
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Raheleh Fisoofi (b. 1975); An Imagined Landscape, 2025; argillotype (dust printing) on paper; courtesy of the artist.
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Raheleh Fisoofi (b. 1975); Traveler on a Carved Landscape, 2023-25; paper, argillotype (dust printing), glass; courtesy of the artist and Jerry Bedor Phillips.
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Raheleh Fisoofi (b. 1975); Vessles for (Un)Grounded installation, 2023-25; ceramic; courtesy of the artist.
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(Un)Grounded installation shot; courtesy of Stephen Harmon.
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(Un)Grounded installation shot; courtesy of Stephen Harmon.
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(Un)Grounded installation shot; courtesy of Stephen Harmon.
Argillotype (Painting and Printing with Dust)
Argillotype is a labor-intensive process that transforms clay and dust into a permanent imprint on paper through painting and printing techniques. Raheleh Filsoofi developed this process by collecting soil from various locations across the United States, isolating clay from it, and working with its various states—slip, plastic, and dust—to create her poems and images.Argillotype (Painting and Printing with Dust)
Argillotype is a labor-intensive process that transforms clay and dust into a permanent imprint on paper through painting and printing techniques. Raheleh Filsoofi developed this process by collecting soil from various locations across the United States, isolating clay from it, and working with its various states—slip, plastic, and dust—to create her poems and images.This exhibition is organized by Telfair Museums and curated by Erin Dunn, curator of modern and contemporary art, and Dr. Elyse D. Gerstenecker, curator of decorative arts.
