Remember your bedroom as a teenager? Plastered with posters, evidence of your budding social life, the graffiti of youth … Photographer Rania Matar has conducted a project for which she photographs teenagers in the United States and the Middle East, at home in their bedrooms. And it just goes to show, there’s no wrong way to be a girl. (And being one hasn’t changed too much, either — there’s surely a picture of my Jim Carrey/movie geek wallpaper floating around somewhere.)
Some girls are minimalist because they’re too busy shredding. Probably to the delight/horror of their parents.
And some have an eye for design.
Some girls have a dark, moody side revealed only to their teddy bears. (And probably a fan fiction community.)
For some girls, it’s about breaking out while maintaining tradition.
And some are not subtle, but super organized.
I think the most consistent element in Matar’s photos (besides photo collages) is how being a teenager (even in one’s early 20s) is so contradictory. For every picture of a friend, significant other, band, or movie is a stuffed animal or something else reminiscent of a more carefree time. And inside their little caves are where the two worlds — childhood and adulthood — meet and battle each other till the death. Imagine if walls could talk.
(Rania Matar via The Hairpin)
