A Girl and Her Room Opening — This Friday!
Join us for the celebration of the release of our newest book, A Girl and Her Room, photographs by Rania Matar, on May 18, 2012 with a cocktail reception at our gallery.
In A Girl and Her Room award-winning photographer Rania Matar captures teenage girls in their most personal spaces — their bedrooms. Photographing girls from both the United States and Lebanon, these intimate portraits offer an insiders’ peek into the girls’ values, desires, and fears, and speak more broadly to the universality of the adolescent experience. Matar’s unbiased documentary questions what it means to grow from girl to woman, and how our identities spill over into our material worlds.
RANIA MATAR has won awards at the New England Photographer Biennial, Women in Photography International, and the Prix de la Photographie Paris. She was selected as one of the Top 100 Distinguished Women Photographers by Women in Photography, and was a finalist for the distinguished Foster Award at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. A Girl and Her Room won the 2011 Legacy Award at the Griffin Museum of Photography, and received a 2011 Massachusetts Cultural Council fellowship. Her work has been reviewed in European Photography, The Guardian, CNN, Boston Globe, B&W Magazine, PhotoEye, and elsewhere. Her first book, Ordinary Lives, was published in 2009.
Thursday May 18, 6pm – 8pm
Umbrage Gallery
111 Front St. Suite 208
Brooklyn, NY 11201
A Girl and Her Room on La Lettre de la Photographie
A Girl and Her Room finds another eager and excited audience at La Lettre de la Photographie. With a slideshow of ten photographs from the book and a statement by Rania Matar about her work, La Lettre is proudly sharing this wonderful book!
And La Lettre isn’t the only one! In the past few months A Girl and Her Room has received praise all across the media: CNN‘s photo blog did a slideshow of Rania’s images, Brooklyn-based Working Class Magazine featured the book in their May “Girl” issue, Allure got up close and personal with a fascinating interview with Rania, Marie-Claire named A Girl and Her Room one of their “Best of May,” L’Orient Le Jour in Lebanon raved about Rania’s exhibition in Beirut and the book, The Huffington Post, Lenscratch, and Photo-eye blog all did features about the book and Rania, and this past weekend it was named as one of Amazon.com‘s “Hot New Releases”!
Congratulations Rania!
Check out this beautiful book here, and save the date — Friday, May 18 — for A Girl and Her Room’s exhibition opening and book signing with Rania Matar at Umbrage Gallery!
Marie Claire Chooses A Girl and Her Room as a May Favorite
And we don’t blame them! Rania Matar’s new book graces the pages of this month’s MC in the Things We Love About May spot. Grab a (gasp!) print copy from your local newsstand, or check it out on the web.
“The Ethics of Narrative Activism:” Grace Before Dying featured on Neiman Storyboard
Lori Waselchuk was recently interviewed on Neiman Storyboard about her latest project, Grace Before Dying, published as a book with Umbrage (2011), and currently in exhibition traveling around the country. Thoughtful and sharp, Lori discussed the complexities of documentary photography and the role of photography like her’s as a tool for bringing attention to serious social issues.
“I really think you can draw people in with a universal. We are connected to each other in really fundamental ways, and in order to tell stories that will connect with others you have to use those tools and look for common ground….But you have to deepen the conversation, and you have to be honest about who this is serving, and what your goals are….
Who does it benefit? What is the value of the information of the issue versus the empowerment of the actual community being affected by the story? All of these issues continue to be part of how I work.“
Read the whole story here.
