PUBLISHER
Damiani

BOOK FORMAT
Clth, 9.5 x 12.5 in. / 152 pgs / 97 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 2/23/2016
Active

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2016 p. 107

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9788862084505 TRADE
List Price: $50.00 CAD $67.50

AVAILABILITY
Out of stock

TERRITORY
NA LA

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DAMIANI

Rania Matar: L'Enfant-Femme

Introduction by Her Majesty Queen Noor. Text by Lois Lowry. Afterword by Kristen Gresh.

In today’s world of endless photographing, tagging and posting images online, what is a pre-teen girl’s relationship to the camera? Upending assumptions of contemporary digital image-making practices, photographer Rania Matar (born 1964) reframes these young women through her poignant portraits of them, revealing in L’Enfant-Femme how girls between the ages of 8 and 13 interact with the camera and in so doing depicts them in deeply personal and poetic ways. Addressing themes of representation, voyeurism and transgression, these images remind us of the fragility of youth while also gesturing toward its unbridled curiosity and joy. Photographing girls in the Middle East and the United States, Matar makes us examine our universality, a beauty that transcends place, background and religion. Candidly capturing her subjects at a critical juncture in the early stages of adolescence, Matar conveys the confluence of angst, sexuality and personhood that defines the progression from childhood into adulthood.

"Maryam" is reproduced from Rania Matar: L'Enfant-Femme.

PRAISE AND REVIEWS

The Guardian

Paula Cocozza

Dress straps slip off shoulders, painted nails splay on hips. At first glance, the postures struck by the children in Rania Matar’s photographs are grown-up. But look more closely at these girls, who are aged between eight and 13, and the picture becomes more complex. They look variously knowing, sophisticated, elegant, inelegant and uncertain. Some are playing mum. Some are playing A-lister. All have been caught in the process of becoming, as Matar puts it, “a little woman”.

Art Houston

Beautiful and sensitive images grace the pages of Rania's stunning new book. These moving photographs evoke a fundamental sense of cross-cultural understanding.

i-D

Emily Manning

If it's possible to be fluent in preteen girl, Rania Matar has to be close.

Dazed

Michael-Oliver Harding

In locking eyes with Matar’s diverse girl squad, we recognise that their nationalities are both unknown and irrelevant... The evocative gaze and telling body language of each girl convey a transnational struggle to find your place in the world.

L'Oeil de la Photographie

Matar beautifully captures girls’ developing identities at this key moment in their lives... The photographs themselves share more about each girl than any verbal description would.

Hyperallergic

Elena Goukassian

While many photographers focus on either aesthetics or rigorous documentation, Rania Matar fuses them — and adds a generous dose of humanity for good measure

Christian Science Monitor

Joanne Ciccarello

Photographer Rania Matar’s third publication, L’Enfant-Femme, celebrates girlhood in transition. She is a gifted portraitist; her oeuvre is girls and women…The journey toward womanhood, with its expectations, demands, and hopes, is difficult to express. Yet Matar captures the essence of the struggle.