How It Is to Be a Heart?

Presented at The Circle, How It Is to Be a Heart? marked Slovenian artist Joni Zakonjšek's first solo exhibition in Istanbul. Bringing together watercolours and mixed-media works, the exhibition explored themes of spirituality, nature, and inner perception through a visual language shaped by intuition, meditation, and spontaneous mark-making. Organised around four interconnected bodies of work—including the Dervishes, Circle Poems, Tassajara Landscapes, and Trees series—the exhibition reflected the artist's engagement with Sufi philosophy, Zen practice, poetry, and the cyclical rhythms of nature. Together, these works invited visitors to experience painting as both contemplation and a way of seeing the world anew.