Yunus Emre InstituteThe Yunus Emre Enstitüsü – London opened its doors this November to Hiç: In Pursuit of Nothingness, a month-long exhibition and cultural programme that brought together artists, philosophers, and musicians from Türkiye, Japan, and the United Kingdom.
Running from 4 to 30 November 2025, the project invited visitors into a contemplative journey shaped by the Sufi principle of hiç -nothingness – as both an artistic discipline and a spiritual horizon. What unfolded was not simply an exhibition but an immersive meditation on silence, humility, and the dissolution of the self as pathways to transcendence.
Curated by Nagihan Seymour, Hiç reimagined the reflective essence of traditional Turkish arts through a contemporary lens. Calligraphy, illumination, and ceramics became vehicles for exploring the unity of being, each work revealing the tension and harmony between form and formlessness. Contributions by Adam Duchy, Ayesha Ahmed, Başak Türken, Gulnaz Mahboob, Hanifi Dursun, Naoki Yamamoto, Osman Yılmazer, Rizwan Khan, Sacit Açıkgözoğlu, Samar Farooq, Sevil Tezgah, Sevim Çakır, Serdar Türken, Soraya Syed, Yılmaz Turan, and Nagihan Seymour created an intricate visual dialogue where devotion and creation were inseparable.
Across November, the exhibition unfolded through workshops, talks, and performances that deepened the exploration of hiç. Early in the month, Hüsn-i Hat and Tezhip workshops with Gulnaz Mahboob and Nagihan Seymour offered participants a hands-on experience of the meditative discipline behind pen, brush, and gold leaf. A few days later, in The Art of Disappearance, artists Soraya Syed and Dr Bilal Badat joined Seymour in conversation to examine the practice of hiç as a lived artistic ethic.
Mid-month, the philosophical dimensions of nothingness came to the fore. On 15 November, Prof. Bilal Kuşpınar presented Nothingness (Self-Annihilation) in Mawlana Rumi’s Metaphysics, tracing the ontological foundations of the Sufi path. Immediately following, Dr Nurullah Koltaş expanded the discussion in Beyond Nothingness, guiding audiences through a cosmological journey from vücûd (being) to adem (non-being) and finally to hiçlik (nothingness).
Later in the programme, the exhibition bridged cultural traditions. On 21 November, Dr Qayyim Naoki Yamamoto interwove Zen and Tasavvuf in a combined talk and Japanese tea ceremony that transformed silence into ritual. The next day, Seymour led participants through the principles of Ottoman ceramic heritage in the İznik Tile Painting Workshop, exploring sacred geometry through pattern and glaze. The final week brought The Breath of Nothingness, a Ney Meşk Workshop with Murat Ferhat Yegül, where collective learning, breath, and prayer converged.
The month-long journey culminated on 29 November with Nothingness in Sufism: The Journey of Sound and Silence, a concert at St Cyprian’s Clarence Gate. Performers Serda Türkel Öter, Eray Cinpir, Murat Ferhat Yegül, Serdar Yılmaz, and Tolga Öter transformed metaphysical inquiry into music, weaving the principles of hiç into tone and stillness.
Beyond its rich programme, Hiç offered an exploration of aesthetics as a mode of knowing. It proposed that beauty in Islamic art emerges not through excess but through restraint, the conscious act of withholding, in which divine harmony finds room to appear. Here, hiçlik was not emptiness but fullness: a space in which meaning unfolds quietly, with clarity and grace.
“Hiç: In Pursuit of Nothingness is more than an exhibition; it is a meeting place for ideas, encounters, and reflection,” noted Dr Mehmet Karakuş, Director of Yunus Emre Enstitüsü – London. “Each talk, workshop, and performance forms part of a larger dialogue between art and the soul—between form and formlessness, sound and silence.”
Curator Nagihan Seymour added, “In an age of noise and distraction, hiç reminds us that true clarity lies in stillness. Through the meditative practices of calligraphy, illumination, and ceramics, this exhibition invites us to unlearn and to see that in becoming nothing, we rediscover everything.”
From the precise discipline of the written line to the serene ritual of tea, from the shimmer of gold leaf to the vanishing breath of a ney, Hiç: In Pursuit of Nothingness unfolded as both an exhibition and an experience — a month-long passage through silence, art, and the sacred geometry of the unseen.
