L’Enfant-Femme

In today’s world of endless photographing, tagging, and posting images online, what is a preteen girl’s relationship to the camera? Upending assumptions of contemporary digital image-making practices, photographer Rania Matar reframes these young women through her poignant portraits of them, revealing in 'L’Enfant-Femme' how girls between the ages of 8 and 12 interact with the camera and in so doing depicts them in deeply personal and poetic ways. Addressing themes of representation, voyeurism, and transgression, Matar’s images remind us of the fragility of youth while also gesturing towards its unbridled curiosity and joy. Candidly capturing her subjects at a critical juncture in the early stages of adolescence, Matar’s images convey the confluence of angst, sexuality, and personhood that defines the progression from childhood into adulthood.