Rate My Professor Fereshteh Toosi

Fereshteh Toosi is an Associate Professor in the digital area of the Art + Art History Department at Florida International University, within the College of Communication, Architecture, and the Arts. An artist, educator, and learner whose work centers on encounter, exchange, play, and sensory inquiry, Toosi incorporates documentary processes, oral history, and archival research. Her output includes immersive performances produced in conjunction with small sculptures, short films, installations, scores, and poetry, often situated in gardens, parks, and waterways. She holds an MFA from Carnegie Mellon University School of Art (2004), a BA from Oberlin College (1998), a post-professional certificate in Social and Environmental Urban Design from Archeworks, Chicago (2011), and studied at Scuola Lorenzo de’Medici, Art Institute of Florence (1996). Toosi has trainings in environmental urban design, horticultural therapy, environmental education, and forest therapy.

Toosi's practice explores participatory eco-art reconnecting human and other-than-human life, addressing interconnectedness of ecology and human history, interspecies public health, entangled futures, emotional attachment to oil, and perception of time through playful, poetic approaches for contemplation and self-reflection. Key projects include the Oil Ancestors series, awarded Knight New Work 2020; Water Radio: Liquid Intelligence, supported by The Ellies Creator Award (2018); Metaphysical Hotline, from a Miami Live Arts Lab Alliance residency; Oracle in the Trees (O, Miami Poetry Festival, 2018); an augmented-reality audio experience for Independence Seaport Museum (2022, University of Pennsylvania’s Program in Environmental Humanities); and Voice Memos for the Future. Exhibitions encompass solo Who saves who? (John and June Allcott Gallery, 2019), Reading Club (O, Miami Poetry Festival, 2019), Mana Contemporary Miami Art Week (2018), Creative Time Summit (2018), Lithium Diaries (2014), and Where Do We Migrate To? (multiple venues, 2011-2016). Featured in the Miami Herald on ecological self-care, she chairs departmental search committees and presents artist talks, including at the University of Kansas, fostering animistic connections and ecological awareness.