Collaboration between artists, musicians and community
Resonance of the Land is a community-engaged project by artist Raheleh Filsoofi, centered around a series of ceramic drums and darbukas made from clay processed from soil collected across Nashville. Drawing inspiration from Middle Eastern and African percussion traditions, these instruments were developed through an ongoing collaboration with musician Reza Filsoofi.
Over the past two years, these clay instruments have served as gathering points for artists, musicians, immigrants, and community members who now call Nashville home. Participants have been invited to decorate the ceramic drums, learn their histories, and activate them through collective rhythm and performance. Through these gatherings, the instruments become vessels of shared memory, holding sound, touch, and the presence of those who play them.
Presented in conjunction with the In Her Place exhibition at the Frist Art Museum, this gathering reflects on the meaning of home and offers a way of grounding migration, memory, and belonging within the soil of a place.
This event coincides with Nowruz, the Persian New Year, traditionally a time of renewal, reflection, and communal gathering. Yet this year the moment arrives amid profound loss across many parts of the world, particularly in the Middle East. Rather than celebrating renewal alone, Resonance of the Land holds space for a more complex reality: the experience of living between grief and hope.
The program unfolds through music, presence, and collective rhythm, creating a dynamic space where mourning and renewal exist side by side, and where sound becomes a way to gather, remember, and imagine continuity.
Supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, this project has been developed through collaborations with the Frist Art Museum, NICE (Nashville International Center for Empowerment), and Vanderbilt University, bringing together artists and communities through clay, music, and collective participation.
Resonance of the Land is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and 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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