Raheleh Filsoofi Solo Exhibition to Open This Weekend in Palm Beach County

Cultural Council of Palm Beach County presents a solo exhibition by Raheleh Filsoofi, on view February 27 through March 26, 2016 at Cultural Council of Palm Beach County, 601 Lake Avenue, Lake Worth, FL.

Raheleh T. Filsoofi received her MFA in ceramics from Florida Atlantic University in 2014. She moved to the United States in 2003 and worked with several renowned American Ceramic artists on public art projects in Coral Springs and Miami. Raheleh's work is steeped a sense of cultural memory and displacement and the way people construct identity through sight and sound. Her art extends to a variety of media, including photography and printmaking, and through the use of sounds, music, physical objects and video she narrates stories of individual and collective experience. She also engages in field research that documents the state of traditional and contemporary ceramic art in Iran today and in particular the role that women play. rahelehfilsoofi.com

This installation utilizes sound and video and the spaces created by wooden boxes of different shapes and sizes. The arrangement compels the viewer to explore the idea of imagination and reality in three dimensions. What is real and what is not? How do we know what we know? The system is a metaphor for the communities into which our society is organized, a labyrinth of closed spaces where people of different nature and culture struggle to interact and communicate. From gated communities to less physical, cultural boundaries, our society is rife with boundaries, obstacles in space and comprehension for those that have been here for a long time and those that have just arrived. The installation brings to the fore the confusion that can arise in such circumstances. It is a vision of human existence in which the constitution of identity, the notion of the self, the misunderstanding of otherness, are all part of an individual's daily experience. Each box is a zone of control or abandonment that the viewer is trying to cross. There is a contrast between what the viewer sees first and what he or she is able to discover inside through video and sound. On the one hand, the installation functions as organized chaos, while on the other it creates opportunities for the viewer to cross boundaries.

The Cultural Council is the official support agency for arts and culture for Palm Beach County serving non-profit organizations, individual artists and arts districts. The Council promotes the county's cultural experiences through an integrated program of advertising, public relations and marketing activities to both visitors and residents. Each year, the Council administers more than $3.6 million in grants, supports arts and cultural education, provides capacity building training and advocates for funding and arts-friendly policies. Located in the historic Robert M. Montgomery, Jr. building in downtown Lake Worth, the Council mounts a series of group and solo exhibitions featuring Palm Beach County artists and provides other programming.

Connect with the Council by calling (561) 471-2901 or visiting palmbeachculture.com. Gallery hours: 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday.