Amy P. Coy Forum

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Join Society 1858 for a special presentation by our 2022 winner of the 1858 Prize for Contemporary Southern Art Raheleh Filsoofi. Tennessee-based Filsoofi examines issues of land, ownership, and immigration, utilizing the ancient art of ceramic and contemporary technology.

12-12:30: Enjoy celebratory champagne in the Rotunda
12:45: Boxed lunch and presentation by Raheleh Filsoofi in the Lecture and Reception Hall
1:45: See Rahaleh's installation in Gallery 7

$45 Member | $55 Non-Member

*3% credit card fee will apply

Recognizing the achievements of regionally and nationally renowned artists, while exciting and educating up-and-coming art patrons about the diverse range of objects created in the South, the Amy P. Coy Forum offers stimulating conversation with the 1858 Prize-winner. Awarded each year by the Gibbes young patron’s auxiliary group, Society 1858, the prize and forum recognize an artist whose work demonstrates the highest level of artistic achievement in any media, while contributing to a new understanding of Southern art.

About Raheleh Filsoofi

Currently based in Nashville, Tennessee, Filsoofi is an assistant professor of ceramics in the department of art at Vanderbilt University. An Iranian native, she has a deep appreciation of clay, both as a plastic material of enormous transformative potential and as a source of metaphorical content for the nature of the human body. Through an intentionally labor-intensive method, Filsoofi locates, excavates and harvests clay for production from various locations in the U.S. Her process embraces the sacredness of the land. The universal yet autochthonous nature of clay is familiar to Native American, Islamic and ancient Persian thought and is a place where disparate ideologies can meet in common wisdom.