The Heart’s Desire - Sufi Collections and Contemporary Art Exploring Shawq (Longing)

The Heart’s Desire, curated by Jessica Cerasi, explores longing in all its forms and its particular resonance within Sufi thought. Bringing together new works by six contemporary artists in dialogue with the collection of the Musée d’Art et de Culture Soufis MTO (MACS MTO), the exhibition considers what it means to live with absence, to sustain hope across distance, and to allow longing to become a means of connection, transformation and spiritual depth.

Inaugurated in 2024, MACS MTO explores the principles, cultural heritage and artistic expressions associated with Sufism through a collection spanning from the Achaemenid period to the present day. Its annual exhibitions bring this collection into dialogue with contemporary artistic practices.

“The exhibition hopes to tap into something fundamental and deeply relatable: the perseverance and hopefulness of the human spirit, held within this state of yearning.”
— Jessica Cerasi, exhibition curator

Longing in Sufi tradition

The concept of longing (shawq in Arabic) permeates Sufi thought, notably through the poetry of Rūmī, Ibn ʿArabī and Rābiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya, as well as stories such as Leyli and Majnûn and the allegory of the Rose and the Nightingale. Rūmī’s parable of the ney—the reed flute torn from its reed bed and yearning to return, evoked in the opening verses of the Masnavi—illustrates the Sufi understanding of separation as a condition that awakens love.

Far from being understood simply as melancholy, shawq is described by Sufi masters as a fire that consumes attachment and illusion, fuelling the quest for union with the Divine.

The exhibition draws on MACS MTO’s collection to explore these ideas through objects including a nineteenth-century Qajar prayer tunic embroidered with Qur’anic verses and a sixteenth-century Safavid padlock, which resonates with the Sufi metaphor of the heart as a locked space that can only be accessed through inner transformation. Historical objects and material culture are placed in dialogue with contemporary artistic practices, inviting different perspectives on longing, separation and the search for connection.

Curator

Jessica Cerasi is an independent curator and Head of Programme at the Bagri Foundation. Her recent exhibitions include Shezad Dawood: Skin of Dreams at the Abu Dhabi Cultural Foundation (2026) and the Saudi Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale. From 2020 to 2024, she worked as a curator on the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi project, following roles at the UK Government Art Collection, the 2019 Venice Biennale and the Hayward Gallery.

https://www.macsmto.fr/en/the-hearts-desire/