Rania Matar has been named one of four finalists for the 2008 James and Audrey Foster Prize. Matar, with the other finalists, Catherine D'Ignazio, Andrew Witkin and Joe Zane will participate in an exhibition at Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art that opens on Nov.12, 2008, and continues through March 1, 2009. The winner of the prize will be announced in January 2009.
The James and Audrey Foster Prize program creates an opportunity for four Boston-area artists to exhibit their work in a leading contemporary art museum, and offers a substantial financial award of $25,000 to the winner and $1,500 to the finalists. All four finalists stood out to the Foster Prize jury as early career artists that have confidently embraced an artistic approach that will lead to the sustained creation of compelling work.
The Foster Prize jury was struck by Matar's ability to capture in her photography the everyday humanity that persists amidst catastrophic circumstances. Matar's work focuses on the Middle East, especially its women and children. Recent projects examined refugee camps, the meaning of the veil and the aftermath of war. Her striking photograph titled "Barbie Girl, 2006," shows a toddler running in delight with the person we assume is her mother smiling in pride behind her. Behind them is a chaotic backdrop of dust and rubble, a construction crane and the shells of bombed-out buildings.
Born and raised in Lebanon, Matar moved to the US in 1984 and currently lives in Brookline, Massachusetts. She began her studies in architecture at the American University in Beirut, and completed her training at Cornell University. She then studied photography at the New England School of Photography and the Maine Photographic Workshops. Matar eventually gave up her career as an architect to work as a freelance photographer. Her images are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Portland Art Museum, the DeCordova Museum, the Danforth Museum of Art and the Kresge Art Museum.
Her website at www.raniamatar.com provides the viewer with more than just slideshows of her photographs. Each of her photographic projects is explained with a statement that gives insight to the work.
"I grew up in Lebanon during a civil war that I never quite understood. After living in the US for almost twenty years, I decided to photograph Lebanon and ended up in the Chatila Palestinian refugee camp. I was shocked by the conditions that people were made to live in and decided to start photographing the numerous refugee camps around Lebanon," wrote Matar in her statement for the Forgotten People Project. "My goal is to portray the humanity of the people, to show how they cope and survive in conditions most people would find unacceptable. The project is still in progress with more photos that need to be printed, and more that need to be taken to tell a more complete story. This is not a political project and does not promote any solution to a very complicated issue, but a photographic documentary of a 'forgotten people.'"