“There is something universal about being a teenage girl."

In honor of International Women's Day yesterday, I wanted to feature the work of photographer Rania Matar.

Via, Crusade for Art (and Slate's Behold)...

Rania Matar began her career as an architect but after taking photography classes to better capture her four children, Matar soon changed professions. Her work is informed by both her dual nationalities (she is both Lebanese and American) and her experiences raising her children, specifically her two daughters. What she is experiencing inside is often reflected by the images she creates of other people. Her current, ongoing, work explores the complex mother and daughter relationships she titles “Unspoken Conversations.”

photos via Unspoken Conversations. See more, here. 

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“There is something universal about being a teenage girl... "

"Being a girl, being a mother, being a woman. I include both cultures, not to compare them but to show the universality about it. All my projects are on some level autobiographical; I’m photographing what I’m going through in my life through other people.” -  Rania Matar

photos via Rania Matar's A Girl and Her Room. See more, here. 

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P.S. I stumbled upon these photos of my bedroom several years ago. According to the pictures on the walls, I was in 8th grade at the time and I remember how proud I was of the way everything looked -- the magazine pictures and the hanging bra, the poems in rainbow ink all over the walls, the Sassy magazine spreads...

I was SO proud, in fact, that I shot a full on photo shoot of my little world, beaded curtain and all.

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from my 8th grade journal

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For more about Rania Matar and her work go, here. You can also follow her on Instagram.

GGC