The Eyes of the Heart and Soul of the World

At a moment when imagination feels constrained by ecological crisis, political violence, and mediated fear, The Eyes of the Heart and the Soul of the World turns to the imaginal—the intermediary realm between the sensory and the symbolic—as a vital faculty of perception. Drawing on Persian mystical philosophy, Henry Corbin’s mundus imaginalis, and James Hillman’s archetypal psychology, this publication approaches threshold states—gestation and birth, childhood and adolescence, gender transition and ageing, love and loss, exile and return—as sites where personal and planetary transformation can be understood as part of one continuous process, experienced across different scales.

Weaving together curatorial reflection, philosophical invocation, and playful fable, it moves between essay, image, and story to suggest that the world always exceeds our habitual modes of perception—and that cultivating a different quality of attention may open onto recognition, solidarity, and possibility.

The Eyes of the Heart and the Soul of the World is the companion publication to Contour Biennale 11, curated by Sofia Lemos, taking place in Mechelen, Belgium, from September 5 to November 1, 2026.