As the fiftieth anniversary of the eruption of the Lebanese Civil War approaches, Lebanon continues to suffer the long consequences of instability. Decades of domestic conflict, precarious peace, corrupt governments, and civilian protest culminated in the August 4, 2020, Port of Beirut explosion, plunging the country into a socio-economic abyss. Amid Lebanon’s tumult, photographer Rania Matar (b. 1964, Lebanon) continues her practice of capturing portraits of young women persisting in uncertain times. Instead of focusing on the devastation associated with her country and the wider region, she trains her lens on young Lebanese women to forefront their creativity, strength, dignity, and resilience.
In her latest body of work, Where Do I Go? (2020 – ongoing), Matar collaborates with the young women of Lebanon to collectively commemorate the present and reimagine the future of a country defined by half a century of conflict and catastrophe. Matar photographs her subjects, who choose the locations themselves, before symbolic backdrops like the Mediterranean Sea, the craggy peaks of Mount Lebanon, the traditional and modern buildings of Beirut, and the country’s many layers of destruction and abandonment, weaving the women, the land, and the architecture into a tapestry of beauty and anxious promise.
The artist was twenty years old when she fled the war in Lebanon to study in the United States. As she photographs these young women, her empathic eye sees their hopes, pains, dreams, fears, and dilemmas as they consider what future Lebanon might offer to them amidst the largest wave of emigration from the country since her own departure. These photographs speak to a universal moment of anxiety in the face of political and economic uncertainty and global unrest. At a time when the global status of women is newly precarious, Matar reveals the resilience, strength, and creativity of a society as exemplified by the grace, beauty, and resilience of its women.
