In the Rhonda and Anthony Moravec Gallery, the work of Lebanese-American photographer Rania Matar unfolds as an intimate testament to resilience and identity. Her ongoing series, Where Do I Go? (2020–present), captures young women in Lebanon navigating a world marked by conflict, collapse, and the lingering echoes of civil war. Yet rather than emphasizing destruction, Matar’s lens seeks grace amid ruin—moments where fragility and strength coexist within the same frame.
Born in Beirut in 1964, Matar left Lebanon during the civil war to study in the United States. Decades later, she returns through her art to engage with a new generation of women who remain in the country, forging their lives within uncertainty. Her portraits are collaborative acts: her subjects select their settings—abandoned homes, sunlit coastlines, or verdant mountainsides—each location serving as both metaphor and mirror for the state of the nation. Through these compositions, Matar weaves together the beauty of the Lebanese landscape and the emotional terrain of its youth.
Her photograph Aya (Draping), taken in Gemmayze, Beirut in 2022, captures a young woman reclining across a worn chair in a decaying room. Light streams through tall windows, suggesting hope and continuity amid decay. This image, like others in the series, transcends documentary and enters the realm of poetic reflection—an exploration of how personal presence and national identity intertwine.
Matar’s portraits stand as quiet defiance against narratives of despair. In a nation still marked by instability and mass emigration, her work honors those who stay, endure, and imagine renewal. Through empathy and artistry, she offers a vision of Lebanon’s women as both witnesses and architects of the future—embodying strength, vulnerability, and an unyielding will to belong.
Image: Rania Matar, Aya (Draping). Gemmayze, Beirut, Lebanon, 2022 © Rania Matar
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