Born and raised in Lebanon, Rania Matar moved to the US in 1984. After studying architecture at the American University of Beirut and at Cornell University, she worked as an architect before studying photography at both the New England School of Photography, and at the Maine Photographic Workshops in Mexico with Magnum photographer Constantine Manos. She currently works full-time as a photographer, and teaches photography in the summers to teenage girls in refugee camps in Lebanon, with the assistance of non-governmental organizations, and is in the process of working with teenagers with brain injuries.

Matar’s work focuses mainly on women and girls. Her projects intend to give a voice to people who have been forgotten or misunderstood. In Boston, where she lives, she photographs her four children at all stages of their lives, and is currently working on a new body of work “A Girl and her Room” photographing teenage girls from different backgrounds.

Her work has been published and exhibited widely in the U.S. and internationally. In 2009 Ordinary Lives was exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, ICA/Boston, the Mosaic Rooms London, Gallery Kayafas Boston, Galerie Janine Rubeiz Beirut, the Southeast Museum of Photography, the Portland Art Museum, The University of Maine Museum of Art, the Griffin Museum of Photography as one of the “Three Concerned Women”, the Spagnuolo Gallery at Georgetown University in Select Contemporary Photography from the Collection of Lucille and Richard Spagnuolo, the University of the Arts, Philadelphia in “Best of Show” exhibit, and at the Danforth Museum of Art in the New England Photographers’ Biennial.

Matar’s work has won an artist grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, first prize in New England Photographers Biennial, first prize in Women in Photography International, second prize at Px3 Aftermath, Prix de la Photographie Paris, 3rd prize at the Art of the Lebanese Diaspora in Lebanon and honorable mentions at the 2010 CENTER Project Competition Award and the Curator’s Choice Award, the Silver Eye Center for Photography Fellowship Award, the Photo Review, Lens Culture International and My Art Space. In 2008 she was selected one of Top 100 Distinguished Women Photographers by Women in Photography, and was a finalist for the prestigious Foster award at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston with an accompanying solo exhibit in 2009.

Her images are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Portland Art Museum, Oregon; the De Cordova Museum and Sculpture Park; the Danforth Museum of Art; the Kresge Art Museum; the Southeast Museum of Photography; and is part of numerous private collections including Anthony and Beth Terrana’s, Lucille and Richard Spagnuolo’s, the John Cleary Estate, and the Emir of Kuweit Collection.

Matar’s first book titled “Ordinary Lives” has just been released, published by the Quantuck Lane Press and distributed by WW Norton.