I feel the universal essence of Rania Matar new work,we can see a connection to growing up most of us share .In each of these pictures these young women have created an image of themselves they are willing to share at least at the time the photographs were taken/given.
I should mention these photographs were taken along the east coast of the United States and in the middle east mostly Lebanon .Sometimes it is not easy to figure out which is which, so look at the pictures closley for the details.A book gives the luxury of time to look and see. In this book Rania has made some grouping of rooms as if they are collages and there is a wonderful essay by Anne Wilkes Tucker from the Museum of Fine Arts Houston.
When I was about 14 and got my first bedroom , much to everyones surprise I painted my walls and most of the furniture black. There were black drapes and many magazine photos with bad painting and drawing created by me . I should say I was not being goth, I was being me at the time daring. That was my thought when looking at these photographs.The subjects seem to be saying this is me for now,but you just wait. To paraphrase myself from another post "Why do we close our eyes to see,to dream,to decide what to become "
Thank you for sharing this work. I look forward to show it to my photography students, mostly girls aged 16- 19 years/Patricia Kingdon
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