Rania Matar, “Christilla, Rabieh, Lebanon” (2010) (all images courtesy the artist and Carroll and Sons Gallery, Boston)
An adolescent girl in her bedroom is a curious thing. If she has her own and doesn’t share it with a swath of siblings, it will become her sanctuary, a place to which she retreats when she wants to get into her own zone and be with herself. Typically, the walls are covered in posters of teen idols or bodies she idealizes and there is a mirror figuring prominently, as well as a laptop (open to Tumblr?) on the bed or at the desk. Stuffed animals and a journal are bound to be lying around somewhere, and there might even be writing on the wall (literally).
In her series A Girl and Her Room, Boston-based artist Rania Matar photographs adolescent girls in their bedrooms, capturing them in moments vulnerable and fresh. She manages to do so without a hint of voyeurism, and with a serious dose of respect for the girls themselves.
“The project came about because I had a teenage daughter,” Matar tells me when we talk by phone. “She was transforming in front of me — she had been a tomboy before, and then she became this girly girl, spending hours getting dressed and what her hair was like. I started photographing her when her friends would come over.”
Read the full article on Hyperallergic: http://hyperallergic.com/85916/the-honesty-of-teens-and-their-bedrooms/
