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 reads 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 exposes a dialectical relationship, where 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 the work merges with a feminist rain-calling ritual. As drought persists in Bulgaria, the summoning of a rain-calling ritual speaks not only to the literal lack of water and the dryness of an abandoned bathhouse but also to a drought of feeling, imagination, and connection. The Loudspeaker and the Tower examines both the invisible and visible control of 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 little chunks of public space which 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.
13.11.2024, 19:00, online (click for the Zoom link)
MANAR MOURSI
Manar Moursi is an artist, architect, and scholar whose multidisciplinary artistic practice spans video, performance, photography, site-specific installations, and artist books. With a foundational background in architecture, her work investigates 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 are integral to her newer 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 spaces such as the Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin), Dar Bellarj (Marrakech), and SOMA (Mexico City). Manar’s 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, which includes both academic and creative publications, 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, and she regularly contributes to editorial work in 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.