Rania Matar

Rania Matar was born and raised in Lebanon. After studying architecture at American University in Beirut, Rania left Lebanon in 1984 and completed her training at Cornell University in the United States. She studied photography at the New England School of Photography and at the Maine Photographic Workshops in Mexico with Magnum photographer Constantine Manos, and eventually gave up her career as an architect to work as a freelance photographer.

Rania has travelled widely in the Middle East and has photographed street scenes in Lebanon, Syria and Turkey. Her work focuses mainly on women and children in the Middle East, and her recent projects – which examine the Palestinian refugee camps, the veil and its meanings, and the aftermath of war – give a voice to people who have been forgotten or misunderstood. In Boston where she lives, she photographs regularly the daily lives of her four children. She prints and develops all of her work herself

Her work has won several awards, and has been published and exhibited widely in the United States and internationally in Germany, Argentina, Syria and most recently in Lebanon as part of "Moving Walls".