All Photos © Rania Matar.

Rania Matar captures the interior lives of teenage girls in intimate portraits shot within the personal spaces of their bedrooms. From stark and paint-chipped to clothing-cluttered and graffitied, the rooms offer an insiders’ peek into the girls values, desires, fears. Photographing girls from both the United States and Lebanon, Matar’s unbiased documentary questions what it means to grow from girl to woman, and how our identities spill over into our material worlds. With essays by Susan Minot and Anne Tucker, A Girl and Her Room is a captivating study of teenage self-expression. – courtesy Umbrage Editions.

Above: Lubna,  Beirut, Lebanon 2010

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All photos © Stacy Kranitz.

Over the last six years, Los Angeles-based photographer Stacy Kranitz has been working on a personal project about the Native American community living on the disappearing Isle de Jean Charles in the Louisiana bayous. Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Indians first bought land here in 1876. Because of its close proximity to the Gulf of Mexico and the disruption of the Mississippi River levees (built in the Sixties) the island has been slowly eaten away by the Gulf’s saltwater. The land is a fourth the size it was when its oldest residents were children. Oil pipelines began unearthing the land in the early-Nineties and erosion of the island has since accelerated due to the gulf oil spill coating nearby vegetation with crude and chemical dispersants. Less than 60 water-damaged houses remain on the island and more than half of them are empty. The road that leads to the island disappears underwater during storms.

Kranitz explains, “Some of the residents I have photographed have left. There have been four major hurricanes that have devastated the gulf coast during the last six years (Katrina, Rita, Gustav and Ike). The population has dwindled substantially during this period. I have seen houses blown away, abandoned and deteriorated into uninhabitable dwellings.”

Kranitz is currently working on an installation that includes a model she built of the island along with sound, video and drawings. She hopes to show the work first in Louisiana. The project is a work in progress as long as the Island is inhabited, for a projected  15 to 50 years.

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All photos © Jonathan Alpeyrie

Jonathan Alpeyrie‘s exhibition World War II Veterans is currently on view at Anastasia Photo. His documentation spans 62 nations and features a powerful selection of diptychs of veterans from opposing sides in the war. He hopes to publish a book as one way to possibly reunite veterans from these different nationalities. Anastasia-Photo specializes documentary photography and photojournalism, and connects its exhibitions to philanthropic organizations that are in some way related to each show. For Alpeyrie’s exhibition, the gallery has selected to support  Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

Above: Thomas was photographed during a WWII veteran rally in Scotland. He fought as a courier in North Africa and later in Burma with the Chindits.
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All photos © Juan Travnik. Above: Cementerio Argentino. Darwin. 2007.

Argentinian photographer Juan Travnik captured the remnants of the 1982 Malvinas (Falklands) War through his haunting landscapes taken on the islands and the portraits of the conscripts and low grade military who fought there. Travnik says, “I was looking to show the effect of the passing of time on the bodies of its protagonists: their physiognomy and attitudinal gestures after so many years of having undergone the critical experience of war, the links and similarities which may or may not weave these photographed faces together, and the way they construct their image in the eyes of ‘the other’.” Great Britain and Argentina have long disputed ownership of the Falkland Islands. The 1982 war began on April 2 when Argentina invaded the islands to assert its control. Britain fought back, defeating Argentina and regaining control of the islands after 11 weeks of fighting. The submarine HMS Conqueror sunk the The General Belgrano, an Argentine cruiser, on May 2nd. This resulted in the largest number of men killed during the events of the Falkland War.

Going into war, Argentines had cheered their conscript soldiers. As Travnik explains, “They were referred to as our troops, our guys and there was a generalized feeling of support and respect for those who were at war to fight for our sovereignty.” It was a different story after the war, however. “[The feeling] I heard over and over from different veterans was: ‘The return home to indifference and silence was more painful to me than the suffering I underwent on the islands,’” Travnik says, adding that it took years for the 10,000 veterans of the war to find work and emotional support, and re-assimilate into society.

Travnik’s long term personal project on Malvinas was published in Malvinas. Retratos y paisajes de guerra.

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French photographer and street artist JR. © Zachary Bako

While doing an artist residency in Beijing, photographer Zachary Bako started documenting the contemporary art scene in China. But it wasn’t until he returned home to New York City that he would meet Liu Bolin, who was working on his series “Hiding in New York.” Bako began photographing Liu’s creative process for the images, which show Liu painted to blend into the background of various sites around the city.

Within six months, Bako relocated to Beijing and began his own series “Liu Bolin: The Process.” Using both still images and video, Bako continues to record and document what goes on behind the scenes in order for Liu to make photographs for his “Hiding in the City” series. Here, Bako chronicles a collaboration between Liu and French photographer JR. For the work, JR photographed Liu, enlarged the image, and pasted it on his studio’s exterior wall and door. Then Liu painted JR to blend into the image and photographed the resulting work.

Liu’s exhibit “Lost in Art” is currently on display at Eli Klein Fine Art in New York City through May 11.

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