This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its authentic location you’ll be able to go to the hyperlink bellow:
http://lenscratch.com/2026/03/a-collaborative-photographic-exhibition-by-heather-and-ben-mattera-weight-of-it-all/
and if you wish to take away this text from our website please contact us
©Heather Mattera, from Weight of it All
CENTER, the nonprofit images group based mostly in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is presenting the Weight of It All, a collaborative photographic mission by Heather Mattera and Ben Mattera. The exhibition shall be on view at CENTER by March 13, 2026. Weight of It All is a collaborative photographic mission born from the quiet terror of watching a teenage son disappear into an consuming dysfunction and a mom’s determined intuition to succeed in him. Created over a number of years, the work traces a household’s emotional panorama as they navigate physique dysmorphia, concern, and the delicate hope of restoration.
The mission started unintentionally, with the mom staging still-life pictures of the meals her son as soon as beloved however not allowed himself to eat–images that grew to become a wordless language when dialog collapsed. These pictures functioned as a method to stay current, to grieve, and to bear witness when phrases failed.
Weight of It All examines each the seen and invisible dimensions of consuming problems, with specific consideration to their reverberations throughout the household system. The work captures the fraught actuality of a guardian witnessing a toddler’s withdrawal: inflexible rituals, fixed vigilance, the sensation of strolling on eggshells, and the paralyzing concern that any misstep would possibly hasten a downward spiral. The sickness doesn’t exist in isolation. It inhabits the family. It reshapes language. It checks love.
Two years later, she invited her son into the body. Together, they formed a visible dialogue that carried them by isolation, confusion, tenderness, and the gradual work of return. More than an artwork mission, their photographic collaboration grew to become a bridge constructed from vulnerability and a shared longing to know each other past concern.
©Heather Mattera, from Weight of it All
In the United States, roughly 30 million individuals — almost 9% of the inhabitants — will expertise an consuming dysfunction of their lifetime. Conditions comparable to anorexia, bulimia, and binge consuming dysfunction stay extensively misunderstood and often misdiagnosed. Only about 6% of these affected are clinically underweight, and males are sometimes ignored solely. Among the deadliest of psychological well being diseases, consuming problems declare hundreds of lives every year — pushed not by meals itself, however by profound struggles with identification, self-worth, management, and company.
Weight of It All provides an intimate view into the stress between nourishment and refusal, the rituals of management, the quiet grief of watching a toddler fade, and the cussed love that endured. It displays the reality they found collectively—that love will not be measured by the meals one couldn’t give, however by the presence that by no means withdrew—and stands as a testomony to resilience, reconnection, and the facility of artwork to carry what phrases can not.
Created collaboratively by Heather Mattera, a skilled scientific therapist, and her son, Ben Mattera, the mission traces the fragile and fractured terrain of dwelling alongside physique dysmorphia, concern, and the tentative risk of restoration. The work started unintentionally. As Ben turned away from meals, Heather started photographing the meals he as soon as beloved. These nonetheless lifes grew to become a surrogate language when dialog faltered. As the sickness deepened its maintain, Heather invited Ben into the body, reworking images right into a shared act of presence — and in the end, a bridge.
In the next dialog, Heather and Ben mirror on the origins of the mission, the complexities of collaboration inside a household system, and the methods images can supply voice when language falls quick.
©Heather Mattera, from Weight of it All
In Conversation: Heather Mattera and Ben Mattera
Excerpt from a recorded dialog
Heather:
Looking again, what was your first thought once I floated the concept of us making a mission on consuming problems as your senior mission?
Ben:
Candidly? My first thought was that it seemed like a good way to get out of doing a college mission I didn’t wish to do. But it shortly grew to become one thing a lot deeper. It was a battle that was very relatable to me — one thing I had handled intently. The thought of giving a voice to that have by images, particularly once I didn’t all the time really feel like I had one, was highly effective. I already had a variety of concepts about what I wished to say, and most of the pictures got here from these authentic instincts.
Heather:
When I requested you, did you are feeling obligated to say sure?
Ben:
No. I used to be a part of the driving drive behind it from the start after we first talked about it. It was one thing I wished to do.
Heather:
Let’s discuss a number of the pictures. One that involves thoughts is the {photograph} of you with tape over your mouth.
Ben:
For me, it was a really literal illustration of how I felt as a teenage boy — particularly in highschool — and what I believed was anticipated of me. I didn’t really feel like I may speak concerning the issues I used to be battling.
Heather:
Why tape? And why that vibrant orange?
Ben:
I favored the orange as a result of it reveals how loud silence could be. It’s about not speaking — about what I’m not consuming, what I’m not letting in. Sometimes you go into the pantry and it’s virtually such as you’re placing tape over your personal mouth, not permitting your self to indulge and even eat a wholesome quantity of meals.
©Heather Mattera, from Weight of it All
Heather:
There’s one other massive {photograph}
Ben:
It’s feels particularly uncooked and uncomfortable. That’s precisely what it’s meant to evoke. It’s lonely. It’s scary. It’s uncomfortable. It’s not one thing you virtually wish to have a look at. I wished to point out what it might probably really feel like once you’re alone within the darkest, most depressing components of your life, that’s how you might be. If somebody feels uncomfortable it, then I believe we’ve completed our job as artists and that’s what I wished to convey.
Heather:
In one other picture, we see yo a teen boy, he doesn’t have his shirt on, sporting solely a serviette round his neck, holding a utensil with a single piece of macaroni.
Ben:
You can see me considering that one macaroni, however within the reflection of the knife you see the entire dish. That’s how overwhelming it felt. It wasn’t about the entire plate — I used to be combating simply to get that single piece into my mouth.
Heather:
What was it like creating these pictures collectively — sharing what you have been going by so I may higher perceive?
Ben:
It was simpler for me as a result of I may specific issues visually. I may create pictures that stated what I wished to say with out saying it out loud, although the creation of the picture.That helped me start to speak about it extra.
©Heather Mattera, from Weight of it All
Heather:
Later, we mixed your authentic pictures with a few of mine. What was that have like?
Ben:
Honestly, I like what you’ve completed. They’re significant additions— issues that, given extra time again then, we would have made ourselves. The newer pictures talk in the identical approach and elevate the story and message I used to be attempting to point out.
Heather:
One of these additions is the {photograph} the place I used to be sitting on the dock, it was early morning, and it was foggy— the place you had the chance to be behind the digital camera and pressed the shutter.
Ben:
That picture seems like a quiet second of you — perhaps loneliness or battle as a Mother going by all of this. And it’s me capturing that, identical to it was you who captured my battle all through the remaining the mission. That trade feels actually distinctive.
Heather:
Were there classes you realized from this mission?
Ben:
I realized that you may have a voice louder than your self, louder than you notice. You can present your self to the world and have a voice and say, “This is me — take it or leave it.”
©Heather Mattera, from Weight of it All
Heather:
Looking again throughout your journey with disordered consuming, do you suppose this mission performed an element in your restoration?
Ben:
Yeah — one hundred pc.
Heather:
How so?
Ben:
It gave me extra energy over myself and over these, I don’t wish to name them urges — perhaps “gremlins.” It’s one thing I can all the time mirror on and consider the facility I’ve and type of the bravery I had to do that mission. I really feel it provides me energy. Even now, speaking about it might probably nonetheless be uncomfortable. But if slightly little bit of my discomfort helps somebody really feel seen or encourages somebody to succeed in out to a good friend or household, or vital different, or makes somebody really feel heard, then I might take that discomfort any day of the week and it’ll all the time be value it to me.
©Heather Mattera, from Weight of it All
©Heather Mattera, from Weight of it All
Heather:
Would you say it helped your therapeutic?
Ben:
Definitely. 100% It gave me company — that’s the phrase. Agency over my relationship with meals and my relationship with myself. It made me really feel like I’ve the ultimate say in what I do and the way I really feel.
Heather:
On that be aware — is there anything you’d wish to say?
Ben:
First, thanks for guiding me and collaborating with me. You helped flip this into one thing larger than I may have imagined. And thanks to everybody who experiences the work and sees it. Check in in your family and friends — you by no means know what somebody goes by. I hope this exhibit permits individuals to look inward and outward, and to see consuming problems by a unique lens.
Heather:
Thank you for being so courageous, bud.
©Heather Mattera, from the Weight of it All
©Heather Mattera, from the Weight of it All
At a time when conversations round psychological well being are gaining visibility but stay fraught with stigma — notably for younger males — Weight of It All provides a compassionate intervention. The mission resists spectacle and as a substitute insists on intimacy, collaboration, and shared authorship as acts of care. By reworking non-public battle into visible dialogue, Heather and Ben Mattera remind us of images’s capability not solely to doc, however to witness, to carry house, and to return company to these whose voices have felt muted. In doing so, the work expands the cultural narrative round consuming problems, inviting viewers to confront discomfort, prolong empathy, and rethink what restoration can seem like throughout the fragile structure of household and love.
©Heather Mattera, from the Weight of it All
©Heather Mattera, from the Weight of it All
©Heather Mattera, from the Weight of it All
©Heather Mattera, from the Weight of it All
©Heather Mattera, from the Weight of it All
Heather Mattera has spent a lot of her life serving to marginalized people really feel seen, heard, and understood, and her photographic work facilities on the complexities and tenderness of human relationships. An Internationally award-winning photographer and mom of two sons, she has exhibited extensively, together with “Nomad’s Breathe” with Geste Gallery in Paris, “Forever Happy” with Fotofestival Lenzberg in Switzerland, A Love Letter to Nature with Photo Vogue in Milan, The Weight of It All in Minneapolis (2023), and Open Walls on the Rencontres d’Arles picture competition (2020). Through her collaborations with non-profits, she helps at-risk youth, unhoused teenagers, foster households, ladies with consuming problems, and households dealing with terminal sickness in creating new and empowering private narratives. She based a worldwide scholarship program for rising photographers and a mentorship initiative that connects college students with sponsored skilled mentors. Earlier in her profession, Heather labored as a printed, licensed therapist, creating an outpatient PTSD therapy program and therapeutic artwork initiative for the Veterans Administration whereas facilitating particular person and group remedy throughout a number of inpatient psychiatric models.
Instagram: @heathermattera
ABOUT CENTER
Founded in 1994 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, CENTER is a 501(c)(3) that helps socially and environmentally engaged lens-based initiatives by schooling, public platforms, funding, and partnerships.
Posts on Lenscratch might not be reproduced with out the permission of the Lenscratch workers and the photographer.
This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its authentic location you’ll be able to go to the hyperlink bellow:
http://lenscratch.com/2026/03/a-collaborative-photographic-exhibition-by-heather-and-ben-mattera-weight-of-it-all/
and if you wish to take away this text from our website please contact us
