Rania Matar
www.raniamatar.com
Rocket Hole, Beirut 2004
Girl and Rocket Hole, Aita El Chaab, lebanon 2006
Fully Covered, American University of Beirut 2007
Newspapers, Beirut 2007
Three Nuns, Beirut 2008
I-Pod, Beirut 2007
Nun with the Blowing Veil, Chekka Lebanon 2008
Open Window, Tyre Lebanon 2005
Sisters, Beirut 2007
Looking Out, Tripoli Lebanon 2007
Rania Matar
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Ordinary Lives
The focus of my photography is on the Middle East, on women and children especially. Lebanon in particular is interesting because of its key location as a gate to the Middle East, between the West and the Arab world, witnessing a blend of Western and Arab cultures, of Christianity and Islam. I grew up and lived in both Lebanon and the US and can thus see Lebanon from different angles. I am an insider who speaks the language, knows the country and understand its people, but I am also an outsider who can see Lebanon, its social and demographic changes and its complexities through Western eyes, and who can still get intrigued by the dichotomies and the extremes that are so shocking to the westerner, but go unnoticed by the locals.
Throughout my work in Lebanon, be it after the war, in the refugee camps, in the suburbs of Beirut, in the convents in the depth of the mountains, or in Southern Lebanon, I was welcome into people’s homes and lives, and I was humbled by people’s resiliency and hospitality. Religion and political affiliations did not matter. As such, in these photos I focus mainly on the people who did not lose their humanity, dignity and resiliency despite what they have been and are still going through. I try to portray them as the beautiful individuals they are instead of part of such and such religious or political group. In the hope of emphasizing the essence of their humanity, I prefer to set my focus on the impressive ability of their spirit and determination to continue with the simple and mundane tasks of daily life no matter what one’s circumstances are: on lives that are ordinary in a surrounding and a political climate that are anything but ordinary.
I chose to start with Rocket Hole as it sets the stage, providing a backdrop for the other images in which we see people going about their lives in orderly ways, at times amidst great disorder.
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