Videogram 139: Manar Moursi – The Spectral and the Corporeal..., 13 Nov 2024 19:00 (online via Zoom)

The Spectral and the Corporeal: Bodies and Their Trace

Manar Moursi will share the creation and research processes behind her projects, which explore how bodies engage with larger social systems, leaving both tangible and spectral marks. Though the spectral remains unseen, Moursi interprets these traces through the interactions between bodies and their environments, uncovering subtle imprints that persist in both the physical world and societal structures. Her interpretive process reveals a dialectical relationship in which bodies and systems continuously shape and reshape one another, creating a cycle of mutual influence and transformation.

In Two Stones and Heaven is a Fountain in the Garden of Your Veins, touch and smell preserve what is fragile, transforming the body into an archive through sensory engagement. The collaborative process in this work intertwines with a feminist rain-calling ritual. As drought persists in Bulgaria, summoning such a ritual addresses not only the literal lack of water and the desolation of an abandoned bathhouse but also a drought of feeling, imagination, and connection. The Loudspeaker and the Tower examines the invisible and visible mechanisms of controlling public space, where mosque architecture symbolizes authority while also serving as a channel for resistance. Meanwhile, in Sidewalk Salon, ordinary objects like street chairs in Cairo carry bodies and the weight of urban histories, highlighting the intimate connections between bodies and the small fragments of public space they occupy. Moursi’s practice invites the audience to experience tensions between private and public, presence and absence, transformation and decay, the ordinary and the extraordinary. In her work, sensation becomes a form of knowledge, encouraging an embodied experience that bridges the corporeal with the conceptual.

Manar Moursi

Manar Moursi is an artist, architect, and scholar whose multidisciplinary practice spans video, performance, photography, site-specific installations, and artist books. With a foundational background in architecture, her work examines the intersections of space, gender, and power, focusing on how built environments and social structures shape human behavior and regulate bodies. Through her practice, she explores how these spaces can be contested and reclaimed, foregrounding themes of resistance and empowerment.

Manar is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in History, Theory, and Criticism of Art and Architecture at MIT, where her research is deeply informed by eco-critical, feminist, and decolonial perspectives. These academic inquiries underpin her recent artistic explorations, which engage with questions of environmental sustainability, decolonial urbanism, and social justice. Her work has been exhibited across the Middle East, Mexico, Canada, and Europe, in venues such as the Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin), Dar Bellarj (Marrakech), and SOMA (Mexico City).

Her artistic and research projects have garnered support from major institutions, including the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, Mophradat, and the Canada Council for the Arts, as well as the Toronto, Ontario, and Quebec Arts Councils. In 2023, she was awarded the Harold and Arlene Schnitzer Prize for the Arts at MIT and was a fellow at the Harvard Film Studies Center.

Her writing, encompassing both academic and creative work, has appeared in academic journals, edited volumes, and self-published zines. She is also the co-author of Sidewalk Salon: 1001 Street Chairs of Cairo, an exploration of public space in Cairo. In addition to her artistic practice and academic research, Manar has taught at the University of Toronto and the University of Waterloo. She also regularly contributes editorial work to journals and publications. Her work is driven by a commitment to social justice, environmental futures, and the decolonization of architecture and cultural heritage, bridging critical theory with hands-on creative practice.

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