Barely two weeks after the Covid-19 pandemic emerged, Lebanese-born American photographer Rania Matar began contemplating how this new, universal human reality might be viewed through a photographic lens. The resulting series, On Either Side of the Window: Portraits During Covid-19, will be exhibited at Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Florida from 16 January.
What began as a series of the artist’s friends at home soon became a community-wide project in which Matar captured portraits of more than 100 people in Massachusetts who agreed to pose for her. She photographed figures behind doors and windows, capturing the intimacy, beauty, anxiety and rhythm of daily life in quarantine. It’s a series of conflicting themes: interior and exterior; solitude and community; reality and artificiality; uncertainty and monotony.
Rania Matar, Minty, Kayla, Leyah, Layla, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2020. Image courtesy of the Artist
Matar’s work delves into the duality of personal and shared identity. These themes are often transported through powerful photographs of female adolescence and womanhood, both in the United States where she is based and in her native Middle East.
The exhibition brings together a selection of 27 new works, each narrating a nuanced story of individuality, collectivity and connectivity during extraordinary times.
Rania Matar, Cyrus, Brookline, Massachusetts, 2020. 'Cyrus identifies as non-binary, Queer and Persian-American. I loved how he stood in his red shirt that matched the red flowers outside. He had balloons inside celebrating his birthday and Pride week,' says Matar. Image Courtesy of the Artist
‘It feels as if the news is always dividing us as “them v/s us”, and now here we are a “we”: all in this together, in the same boat, with life at a standstill and reduced to the confinement of home,’ says Matar. ‘This virus is such an equaliser, making us all re-evaluate our shared humanity, our fragility, and our priorities.’
Matar’s series captures an era in which our domestic spaces have become both sanctuary and prison. Her subjects, like many of us, are existing on the periphery of a world – one to look at, but not to touch. Symbolism is carried through the window itself: a transparent barrier that protects and inhibits; a tool to frame, reflect and shield. Most poignantly, the series captures the striking variety that can emerge from a universally lived experience.
Rania Matar, Lucy, Boston, Massachusetts, 2020. 'Kids were all home during the early days of Covid-19 and the lockdown. Families were at home together, with kids being homeschooled and parents working from home and playing teachers, Matar explains. 'It was important for me in this project to include families, kids, and a variety of age groups as we were all in this together'. Image Courtesy of the Artist.
Rania Matar, Linda, Watertown, Massachusetts, 2020. Image courtesy of the Artist
INFORMATION
Rania Matar 'On Either Side of the Window: Portraits During Covid-19', 16 January – 9 May 2021, Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Florida.
rollins.edu/cornell-fine-arts-museum
ADDRESS
Cornell Fine Arts Museum
1000 Holt Ave
Winter Park, FL 32789
-
Audemars Piguet and Kaws have created the Royal Oak Concept watch we didn't know we neededThe Audemars Piguet x Kaws Royal Oak Concept Tourbillon 'Companion' is the slick wrist-worn art
-
A friendly rivalry coloured by kinship: Wendy Maruyama and Tom Loeser on their two-artist show'I wanted to make furniture, just not traditional furniture, but weird furniture,' says Wendy Maruyama on ‘Colorama’, a two-artist show presented at design gallery Superhouse (until 11 January 2025)
-
Tranquil and secluded, Lemaire’s new Tokyo flagship exudes a sense of homeIn Tokyo’s Ebisu neighbourhood, Lemaire’s tranquil new store sees the French brand take over a former 1960s home. Co-artistic directors Christophe Lemaire and Sarah-Linh Tran tell Wallpaper* more
-
‘Gas Tank City’, a new monograph by Andrew Holmes, is a photorealist eye on the American West‘Gas Tank City’ chronicles the artist’s journey across truck-stop America, creating meticulous drawings of fleeting moments
-
Intimacy, violence and the uncanny: Joanna Piotrowska in PhiladelphiaArtist and photographer Joanna Piotrowska stages surreal scenes at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania
-
First look: Sphere’s new exterior artwork draws on a need for human connectionWallpaper* talks to Tom Hingston about his latest large-scale project – designing for the Exosphere
-
Marc Hom reframes traditional portraiture in Cooperstown, NY‘Marc Hom: Re-Framed’ has taken over the grounds of the Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, planting Samuel L Jackson, Gwyneth Paltrow and more ‘personalities of the world’ into the landscape
-
Alexander May, founder of LA studio Sized, on the joys of creative polymathyCreative director Alexander May tells us of the multidisciplinary approach that drives his LA studio Sized and its offspring, a 5,000 sq ft event space and an exhibition series
-
50 of America’s top creatives, photographed by Inez & VinoodhPhotographed exclusively for Wallpaper* by Inez & Vinoodh, we present a portfolio of 50 creatives driving the current discourse on American culture and its dynamic evolution
-
Nona Faustine confronts the past in New YorkArtist Nona Faustine reframes New York's colonial past in an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum
-
How the west won: Ivan McClellan is amplifying the intrepid beauty of Black cowboy cultureIn his new book, 'Eight Seconds: Black Cowboy Culture', Ivan McClellan draws us into the world of Black rodeo. Wallpaper* meets the photographer ahead of his Juneteenth Rodeo
