Rania Matar
Photo of Rania by Helena Goessens
Tell me a bit about your cultural background and how it informed and inspired your art?
I was born and raised in Lebanon. My parents were originally Palestinian. My mother died when I was three years old so I grew up just me and my father for many years, and that probably has some role in my work. I also grew up during the Lebanese Civil War. I started my college years in Beirut at the American University, studying architecture. But in 1984, things got really bad in Lebanon and I transferred to Cornell University in upstate New York. I thought I’d be coming to the United States for a few years and then going back to Lebanon, but I ended up staying. I studied architecture with a focus on art (painting, intaglio, charcoal drawing, etc). When I graduated, I worked as an architect for a few years, got married and had kids. Eventually in 2000, I started taking photography workshops to make better photos of my children, and I absolutely fell in love with the medium, the craft, and the ability of telling a story through photography. At that point, it was a hobby on the side. I had four kids, and my house was a circus, so in a way photography helped me cope with the craziness of my household and taught me to find the beauty in everyday moments. Then September 11th happened. Up until that point I wasn’t thinking about my background - I was an American citizen by then; we bought a house; I was raising my kids; but then my whole sense of identity was shattered with the rhetoric of “them” vs. “us” (I was "them" and I was "us") and all the horrible, negative news coming out of the Middle East as a whole, it felt like everybody was being grouped into a one-dimensional identity. So I decided to start making pictures there and telling a different story from the area (from Lebanon at least). In 2002 I went to a Palestinian refugee camp with my cousin, and I was shocked that people lived in those conditions so close to where I grew up. I wanted to tell their stories. People were kind, warm, hospitable and it became important for me to portray their dignity and their humanity. I was tentative at first as I didn't want to offend people by getting too close and invading their space. I remember showing my work at a portfolio review a couple of years later and showing the pictures of my children and the early pictures I had made in the refugee camps. The reviewer, Peter Howe, said “all your work needs to feel as intimate as the photographs of your kids if you really want to tell people's stories.” That was probably one of the best pieces of advice anyone ever gave me. So, I kept going back, and made the right connections with non-governmental organizations who introduced me to families and I was welcome into the home. I was able to create close relationships, get to know people and tell their stories by collaborating with them intimately. I was fascinated by the women, the mothers who kept their homes together to provide for their kids and I ended up focusing on women and children mainly. Being a woman and a mother myself helped build that intimate connection we made. Since then I always found myself focusing on girlhood and womanhood in my work.
Can you share a bit about how the central theme of your work (women) originated?
As I mentioned above, I found myself very drawn to the women, without ever making it a conscious decision, but I was in awe of how they were holding their lives and their homes, raising their kids, and I felt like it was something universal. Even though we grew up differently we were united by our womanhood and our motherhood. That was a profound realization for me and most of my work has been about women since.
The first book of my work that I published was titled “Ordinary Lives.” It included four projects: Forgotten People, about life in the refugee camps, the Aftermath of War, after the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel, the Veil as a multilayered symbol: religion, devotion, but also statement, and (yes) fashion, and then also the Christian Arabs that most people in the West don't even know exist (I am one of them!).
I had become interested in the whole idea of the veil - not as a Western obsession, but because when I grew up in Lebanon hardly anybody wore it, at least not in Beirut proper. I became fascinated with all the meanings it entailed. The West seems obsessed with the veil as a symbol of oppression and backwardness but I found that there were more layers to it, and it was more complicated, and many women (at least in Lebanon) wore it by choice. And then, in 2006, I got stuck in the war with my four children, and I just wanted to get us out, which we eventually managed to do, but I went back when the war ended and photographed the aftermath.
After the book was published, I was ready to work closer to home (in Boston), my older daughter was then 15 and I was fascinated by how she was transforming, so I wanted to start a project about teenage girls. This became “A Girl in Her Room.” The work eventually included young women in the US at first and then I decided to include young women in Lebanon. Despite the individuality of each young woman, there was a universality to growing up. I photographed in both my cultures to focus on that shared humanity. This became consistent in all my work moving forward. Later I worked on L'Enfant-Femme, Becoming, Unspoken Conversations, a mother/daughter project. All the projects were somewhat autobiographical, inspired by my daughters and my own life, by growing up and growing older.
Tell me about your latest book project, “SHE”!
The book that I’m working on now is called “SHE.” In 2017, I was invited to do a residency at Kenyon College in rural Ohio and I fell in love with the rural Ohio landscape. I started photographing young women in relation to the landscape. I was photographing them in a different setting; in the setting they found themselves in once they left home. They were the ages of my daughters and they were in that transitional period when they are leaving home and adjusting to new surroundings. Around that time, I had a health issue and I lost half my hair (it is back). My hair is very much part of who I am - I have lots of it, and I became interested in our physicality and our texture, and this all contributed to the new work I was making. I also realized how hard it is to be 20 today and I wanted the process to be collaborative and empowering for the women. As for the rest of my work, I ended up taking it to Lebanon as well, where the landscape was often replaced by the textured wall, and beautiful old buildings that were remnant of the Civil War. Even though those young women never lived that war, it was very much part of the collective memory.
This work is now being published into a book by Radius Books.
Photo by Rania Matar, Nour, Beirut, Lebanon, 2017.
Can you tell me more about the pandemic project you did (“On Either Side of the Window”)?
Well, I got a Guggenheim for the “SHE” project, which was the biggest honor I could dream of. For the past two and a half years all I had been doing was travel to make work for the SHE project. As soon as Covid happened, like for everyone else, life went into a halt and I made prints of the images I had been making and editing this work. I realized how many images I had that had to do with being inside and outside. I also had 6 young adults at home and found myself in the kitchen a lot, looking out the window staring at my neighbor across my yard and behind her own window. One time she was reading in a window seat and I thought that it was so beautiful and I had an AHA moment: this is a project. All the elements came into place somehow and I bought a medium format digital camera (I had been shooting with medium format film) for this. I put a picture on Instagram saying if you live 30 min from where I live, I’d love to come make your portrait. I was humbled by the sheer number of replies that I got. People were so willing to do it, and I quickly realized that everyone was craving that human connection, but also that no one was in a rush, so the shoots were never rushed and I was able to take my time and get that intimacy I always crave in my work - despite the physical barrier between us. I love to collaborate with the people I photograph. I’m in awe of all the people I photographed and even the physical barrier was not an obstacle to our collaboration. It made me realize we were all living something tough but that sense of connectivity was what mattered... I was grateful for them, and on some level they made me feel like they were grateful for my visits and our collaborations. They often left me little trinkets at the door.
Photo by Rania Matar, Mia and June, Allston, Massachusetts, 2020.
What are three things that bring you comfort?
My Family
My art and the people I work with. I’m alive when I’m photographing.
Home, which is here in the US and also in Lebanon.
Who are some photographers you especially admire?
When I first started photography, I fell in love with the work of Sally Mann. She inspired me in the work I made with my kids and made me fall in love with photography. In terms of portraits, I love August Sander. I also love the work of Elinor Carucci, which also focuses on womanhood and motherhood too in a different way but it tied us together, she as an Israeli, and me as a Lebanese/Palestinian. I love the work of the Dutch photographer, Hellen van Meene who uses light better than anyone I can think of.
David Hilliard and Richard Renaldi deal with issues of masculinity, while I focus on issues of femininity and I love that parallel. Nelli Palomaki photographs sisters in a beautiful poetic way. Jessica Todd Harper tells family stories by focusing on her personal life and her home as the stage. Cig Harvey and her beautiful lush use of color.
Photo by Rania Matar. Kefa, Gambier, Ohio, 2018.
These are a few of my favorite things…
Books: I have so many, but right now I am reading the series of four books - the Neapolitan Novels My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante and love them. They deal with issues of girlhood, womanhood, growing up, growing old with a political twist to the backdrop. Exactly what I am interested in, in my work.
Album or Song: Queen is my favorite and The Show Must Go On is one of my absolute favorite songs.
Place: Corniche in Beirut.
Movie: Boyhood, Rear Window, and.... My Cousin Vinny! (and secretly: The Devil Wears Prada!)