As Matar watched her own daughter grow, she became intrigued by female self-presentation and subjectivity and began photographing young women, which has been her primary focus for 15 years. In her series L’Enfant-Femme (French for “the child-woman”), which this portrait is from, Matar instructed her pre-teen and teenage subjects not to smile, but she otherwise let each choose her own expression and pose. The way the girls relate to the camera shows them in the complexity of their transition from child to adult as they work through issues of self-confidence, puberty, personal expression, sexuality, and femininity. Many of the portraits feature a mix of adult aspirations with childhood remnants, like Alia’s confident pose and elegant earrings contrasted with the cartoon character on her shirt. Matar photographed this series in two places she calls home—the U.S. and Lebanon—and the resulting images capture the similar experiences of young women across different cultures.

—Text taken from the Carter Handbook (2023)