2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War. As we reach this symbolic date, Lebanon still suffers its consequences. The past 5 years, conditions have deteriorated fast, especially after the August 4,

2020 Port of Beirut explosions and all that has ensued. However, and through it all, I always found hope and inspiration in the women.

I have previously dedicated my work to exploring issues of personal and collective identity through photographs of female adolescence and womanhood in both the United States where I live, and in Lebanon where I am from to highlight our shared humanity. In this body of work, I chose to collaborate with women in Lebanon specifically. The work became personal. I see my younger self in these women. I was twenty when I left Lebanon in 1984 during the Civil War, to go study in the United States, in what had been the largest wave of emigration – until recently. Many find themselves at that same juncture as they face the painful decision in determining whether to stay or leave: one road leading to separation from family, home and life as they know it, the other staying despite the fraught conditions in the country, always holding on to hope for better days.

I saw graffiti on the wall that said in Arabic: “Where do I go” لوین روح . I was with Perla, a young woman who threw herself on that wall. It became the title of this body of work.

The project kept evolving over the past years, as I invited more women to tell their story through our collaboration. Together we explored their relationship to the different aspects and textures of Lebanon. Each photograph is personal and has a narrative. The women, the land, the architecture are intertwined. I portray the raw beauty of their age, their individuality, physicality, texture, and mystery. I photograph them the way I, a woman and a mother, see them: beautiful, alive. The process is collaborative, and the photo session evolves organically as the women become active participants in the image-making process, presiding over the environment, and making it their own. They climb

on rocks and trees, jump fully dressed in dirty water and waterfalls, crawl under thorns, trespass into abandoned buildings, embracing life and getting dirty, taking risks and having fun. Given the space to express themselves, they are willing to experiment and go places neither of us thought possible just moments earlier. Just like living in Lebanon, we embrace the element of risktaking and danger. It is part of who we are. It’s in our DNA.

I find myself focusing on their strength and their majestic presence. The collaboration is intense, creative, emotional, and personal. The need to hold on to creativity and self-expression feels urgent. While my photographs may not provide solutions, I hope they nevertheless invite the viewer to pause and find the beauty, the (shared) humanity, and the grace that still exist despite all. They are my love letters to the women of

Lebanon. This project is for us all: the ones who stayed and the ones who have left but can never leave.

Rania Matar

Born and raised in Lebanon, Matar moved to the U.S. in 1984. As a Lebanese-born Palestinian/American artist and mother, her cross-cultural experience and personal narrative inform her photography. Matar’s work has been widely exhibited in museums worldwide in solo and group shows, including Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art), Carnegie Museum of Art, ICA/Boston, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Fotografiska, Institut du Monde Arabe, and more. It is part of the permanent collections of several museums. A mid-career retrospective of her work was on view at Cleveland Museum of Art, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, and the American University of Beirut Museum. Solo exhibitions include the Middlebury Museum of Art, and the Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University, 2026.

Matar received several awards including a 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship, 2022 Leica Women Foto Project, 2021 Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Grants, 2017 Mellon Foundation artist-in-residency grant, 2011 Griffin Museum of Photography Legacy Award. She was a finalist for the Oskar Barnack Award 2023, Arnold Newman Prize 2022, Outwin Portrait Competition with an exhibition at Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery/DC, and Taylor Wessing Prize with an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London.

She recently curated “Louder Than Hearts”, a group exhibition of women from the Arab World and Iran at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC. Matar serves on the board of BeMA-USA, the Beirut Museum of Art. She published four books: SHE, 2021; L’Enfant-Femme, 2016; A Girl and Her Room, 2012; Ordinary Lives, 2009. She is working on her upcoming book: 50 Years Later: Where Do I Go?, 2026.