Heart of Hearts Exhibition Traces the Heart Across Art, Science and History

The heart carries meanings that reach well beyond the familiar language of affection. Heart of Hearts, a fall 2026 exhibition of archives and special collections materials, takes that broad symbolism as its subject, bringing historical objects into conversation across art, ceremony, science and coded communication. It opens Oct. 5, 2026, and runs through March 5, 2027, at the Terrance L. Mahan, S.J. Gallery on library level 3.

Curator Ava Lehrman, an English Department graduate student, has organized the exhibition around five ways people have understood the heart: “Heart as Sacred and Immaculate,” “Heart as Soul,” “Heart as the Seat of Emotions,” “Heart as a Window into Human Nature” and “Heart in Human Anatomy.” The groupings invite visitors to consider how one familiar form can carry religious, emotional, philosophical and bodily meanings at once.

Objects that carry many meanings

The exhibition brings together ancient artifacts, early printed books, manuscripts, artworks, postcards and ephemera. These formats offer different kinds of evidence: a manuscript or printed volume can show how an idea was recorded and passed on, while a postcard or other small printed object can reveal how symbols traveled through everyday life. Artworks and artifacts, in turn, give visitors another way to encounter the heart as an image and object.

That range gives the exhibition room to move between formal traditions and ordinary uses of the symbol. A heart may suggest an inner life, a bond between people, a sacred ideal or a physical organ. Those associations can overlap, but they aren't interchangeable. By presenting several interpretations side by side, Heart of Hearts asks visitors to notice what a particular object makes the heart stand for, and how its material and historical setting shape that meaning.

The exhibition also pushes against a narrow modern shorthand: the heart as a decorative emblem of romance or holiday greeting cards. Lehrman's research follows the symbol across cultures and centuries, according to the exhibition description. That span makes the heart a useful subject for an archival exhibition because it can connect records of belief, feeling, knowledge and visual expression without reducing them to a single definition.

An interdisciplinary research effort

Heart of Hearts includes several ancient Egyptian objects loaned by the LMU Institute for Archaeological Studies. Their presence adds material from a specific historical tradition to an exhibition that considers the heart across a wider range of objects and meanings. The source description does not identify individual objects or explain their specific interpretations, so visitors can encounter them within the exhibition's larger questions about symbolism, ceremony and human understanding.

Lehrman's work was supported by specialists from several fields. The project acknowledges Karen Rapp, director of Laband Art Gallery; Caroline Sauvage, director of the LMU Institute for Archaeological Studies; Eric Swanson of LMU Theological Studies; Robin Choudhury of Biomedical Sciences, Oxford University; and artist Maya Gonzalez. Their contributions point to the range of expertise involved in studying a symbol that can be approached through art, archaeology, theology, biomedical science and artistic practice.

The exhibition also grew from an internship opportunity provided by the graduate program of the English Department. That connection places graduate research at the center of the project, with archival and special collections materials serving as the basis for a public presentation. For visitors, the result offers a chance to see how a focused research question can bring materials from different collections and disciplines into a shared setting.

Visiting the exhibition

Heart of Hearts is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., at the Terrance L. Mahan, S.J. Gallery, library level 3. An opening reception is scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 7, at 5:30 p.m. Visitors can RSVP for the opening reception.

The exhibition's central invitation is to look closely at a symbol that can feel instantly recognizable, then ask what it has meant in different contexts. Its mix of books, manuscripts, artworks and historical objects gives that question several points of entry. For readers drawn to the history of ideas and the stories objects can tell, the heart here is less a fixed emblem than a subject whose meanings keep unfolding across time.

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