I was born and raised in Lebanon to Palestinian/Lebanese parents. I moved to the United States in 1984 to study architecture and have lived in the US ever since. I am now based in Boston.  I am a mother to 4 now young adults and I mention all this as both my cross-cultural experience and my personal narrative as a Lebanese/Palestinian/American artist and mother have all informed my art.

Another transformative moment in my life as an artist was September 11.  I was practicing architecture up to that point, with photography as a hobby. The news after September 11 in the US was typically portraying the Middle East in a very negative way – the “them” v/s “us” rhetoric was very disturbing – I was “them” and I was “us”.  I had grown up “there” and I now live “here”.  It became important to me in my work to focus on our shared humanity.  I became a full time photographer. 

Your greatest inspirations or influences?

• My children, especially my daughters as I watch them grow up and transform. 

• My life and my direct experiences are always the basis for all the projects that I work on. 

• Watching what is happening in Lebanon and staying connected is always a key part of my work. 

• The young generation in Lebanon, especially the women have been my inspiration in the past couple of years. 

Tell us a bit about your creative process? things you are looking forward to this year..

My work is always instinctive and personal and then turns into a project.  It usually addresses the states of ‘Becoming’ – the fraught beauty and the vulnerability of growing up – in the context of the visceral relationships to our physical environment and universal humanity, but it is also about collaboration, experimentation, performance, empowerment, and about pushing the limits of creativity and self-expression ‐ both for the women I photograph and for myself.

By collaborating with women in the United States and the Middle East, I focus on our essence, our physicality and the commonalities that make us human, in an effort to highlight how female subjectivity develops in parallel forms across cultural lines.

This year, I am looking forward to continuing my work and staying inspired, but especially looking forward to the publication of my new book, published by Radius Books. I am most proud of this work and cannot wait to have the book in hand and to share it. 

How has this year changed your creativity or how you see the world changing moving forward?

This past year was challenging for all and on so many levels. Covid-19 of course, but also the horrible August 4th explosions in Beirut. I tried in both instances to focus on our humanity and interconnectivity, and the light at the end of the tunnel.  I stayed connected with people during lockdown by going to their windows and making their portraits from the other side of the glass. It humbled me how many people were willing to be part of this, but also how important the human interaction we often took for granted, was – for both of us on either side of the window and of the camera.

After the August 4th explosions, I organized a fundraiser for Beirut where ALL the money raised was donated to SEAL (Social and Economic Action for Lebanon) https://www.seal-usa.org/. Once again I was immensely humbled by people’s kindness and generosity, and the amount they helped me raise in record time!

In both instances, our shared humanity was what I chose to focus on and take away from the difficult year we had collectively experienced. 

Who do you consider to be an icon of our time?

• Huguette Caland: an artist and a woman so ahead of her time, pride of Lebanon.

• Alice Neel: whose exhibition I was so grateful to visit in NYC recently. 

• August Sander: a master portraitist who is as relevant today as he was in the 1900’s.

• Irving Penn, whose work I just adore.  

Do you think the art world needs to change, and if so how do you feel it can improve?

In some ways, I feel that artists should keep focusing on their work and let the art world do its thing. It is too easy to get caught in the politics and the glamour of the art world and feel that we have to make work that complies with the trends of the times. Artists can help change the world to be a better place, to bring new understanding and awareness to issues that might never be seen otherwise.

That being said, I see good things and less good things happening in the art world today. In one sense, it is becoming more inclusive as museums and galleries are more aware of its previous lack of inclusivity, and are making an effort to exhibit and collect the work of women, people of color, LGBTQ, etc.  

But on the other hand, smaller to mid size galleries are barely surviving giving way to art fairs, online sales, and mega-galleries. Galleries are important for artists and I worry that the gallery/artist relationships are shifting. Time will tell where this will go. 

What does wellbeing mean to you?

Feeling balanced with my role as a mother, a daughter, a wife and an artist. Feeling present in each role in its own time with my full-undivided attention.

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• Rania Matar | SHE