The Resonance of the Lands is a community-based project rooted in clay, sound, and shared presence. At its core are ceramic drums and darbukas made from soil collected in Nashville by artist Raheleh Filsoofi. Over the past two years, the soil has been processed into clay and formed into a series of hand-built instruments inspired by Middle Eastern and African drum traditions, developed in collaboration with Reza Filsoofi and community members.
These drums are not symbolic objects; they are playable vessels of the land. Community members have gathered to decorate and perform with them. Through this process, clay from Nashville becomes an instrument of encounter. The project has brought together immigrant artists and musicians who now call this city home, creating a space where cultural memory is not erased but sounded.
Presented in conjunction with In Her Place, this gathering asks a direct question: What defines home? Is it origin, geography, language, or shared vibration? The drums offer one response. They hold the material of the land and the labor of many hands. When played, they transform soil into resonance, grounding memory in the present.
This gathering marks Nowruz at a time of renewal and return, without surrendering to celebration alone. While Nowruz has long been a moment of reflection and new beginnings, this year it arrives amid profound loss. Across the world, lives continue to be taken in protests, war, and struggles for dignity and freedom. Renewal does not arrive untouched by grief.
The music becomes an act of collective listening. In Music City, sound operates as a shared language—one that does not dissolve difference but allows many voices to exist in relation. This event is offered as a gesture of solidarity and remembrance, where land, body, and voice meet at a threshold between renewal and loss.
The Resonance of the Lands is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and is realized through collaboration with the Frist Art Museum, Nashville International Center for Empowerment (NICE), Nashville Immigrant and Refugee Art and Music Project (NIRMA Project) and Vanderbilt University.
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