P4 / project content — Manar Moursi

Two parts of this work were exhibited in 2022 at La Verdi, the studio of artist Ana Gallardo, as part of the group exhibition Asunto de Familia in Mexico City. The exhibition was co-curated by artists Aimée Suárez Netzahualcóyotl and Maria Méndez. Supported by a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, the project was initially developed during a residency at Union Docs in 2019 and is still ongoing.

You Can’t Get Blood From A Stone Cairo, La Verdi, Mexico City, 2022

You Can't Get Blood from a Stone is an autofictional video essay drawn from a deeply personal archive of emails and exchanges between myself and an ex-lover, spanning nine years and beginning during Egypt's 2011 uprising. These emails, which form the voiceover, touch on a wide range of themes—relationships, family dynamics, personal growth, cultural and political reflections, and the process of coping with grief and loss. Through these intimate exchanges, the work reveals how the personal and political intersect, particularly within women's narratives, and confronts issues such as gender discrimination, social expectations, and gender-based violence. The visuals, primarily captured on my phone during those years, are layered with the voiceover to create a rich interplay of dissonance and consonance—moments of tension and harmony. The dissonance reflects the contradictions and emotional complexities in the relationship, while consonance brings together moments of connection and clarity. Together, the voiceover and visuals explore the fluid intersections of memory, identity, and socio-political reality, drawing connections between past and present, the individual and the collective, the intimate and the public.

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