A Belgian photographer searching for the identity of the “American Girl”.. This is what she observed through her lens

Belgian photographer and filmmaker Eva Verbeek credits two prominent stars in popular culture, singers Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears, with shaping her teenage years. Spears in particular had a big impact on her, according to Verbeek in a recent video call. She was surrounded by “a special aura that embodied the image of the American girl,” as she put it.

Teenage pop stars represented a clear gateway to shaping an image of what life was like for girls in the United States for the photographer, and many women who lived through their formative years in the late 1990s and early 2000s. American cultural influence reached them mostly through traditional media such as cinema, television, music videos, and magazines.

Verbeek grew up in a small town called Tsenderlo, about 70 kilometers from the Belgian capital, Brussels, and her early inspiration came largely from popular magazines such as Vanity Fair, Vogue, and Elle, which she picked up from her local library. “The United States is a huge source of popular culture and the myths surrounding it,” she adds.

Visually, it was the first spark of my passion for America. Later, I started watching American television programs that dealt with the lives of high school students, and it was fascinating because that life was very different from my world at that time.”

Two decades later, this relationship with the country's culture and aesthetics, along with her perception of the "American girl" as she imagined it, paved the way for a six-year project in which Verbeek photographed 400 young women and girls between the ages of 6 and 18 in 28 US states. The photographic series, American Girls: On the Edge of a Dream, was published this month in book form by GOST Books, with exhibitions planned at De Factorie Cultural Center in Belgium and the Savannah Photography Center in Georgia.

When Verbeek began working on her project in 2018, she had already been based in America for years as a photojournalist. Since the nature of her work involved short-term and fast-paced assignments in the political arena, the “America’s Girls” project represented an opportunity for the photographer to adopt a more intimate and personal artistic style, and allowed her to explore issues related to gender and identity, and reflect on girls’ childhood, while challenging the dominant narratives that she observed during her adolescence.

The project also provided direct interaction with the contemporary experiences of young women and girls living in the United States. “I remember documenting the first photo and feeling that it was so perfect,” Verbeek says, recalling the moment she took the first photo of the then 11-year-old Jazmine, who was a member of the Savannah Sharks cheerleading team.

The photographer, who currently resides between Brussels and Amsterdam but was living in the US state of Georgia at the time, adds: “In that cheerleading school, where sequins sparkled everywhere... the scene was beyond the imagination of the younger version of me.”

In that photo, which later became the cover of the book, Jazmine appears with blue eye shadow that matches the details of the team's uniform, while looking into the camera lens. Her youthful features appeared clear, in a way that broke the stereotype of female cheerleaders as established on screens during Verbeek's adolescence, which was characterized by a blatant sexual nature.

For each photo shoot, the photographer introduced herself to potential participants through open invitations to schools, clubs, youth groups and local organizers. Based on her insistence that the girl’s desire to participate should come from her personally, and that the series should not be entirely formulated according to her own vision, she refused to choose participants randomly, but rather invited teenage girls and younger girls to take their photos while carrying an object or wearing a piece of clothing that expresses their personality.

In addition to cheerleading squad members, Verbeek photographed members of marching bands, various sports teams, and girl scout groups, while other participants chose to appear in the photos with their pets, wearing their favorite clothes, or next to their close friends. The photographer says, referring to the significance of private collections and their role in empowering girls: “It is completely different from our view of women in art, or from how they were depicted throughout history, where women were expected to be married, or were the inspiration for an artist, or the daughter of a noble family.”

She continued: "Previously, their names were never mentioned, and they did not choose what to wear. It was imposed on them or a figment of the artist's imagination. So it was important to try to change this approach and deliver a message that says: 'I care about how you want others to see you.'"

Through her conversations with the girls and learning about their interests and views of themselves, Verbeek realized that communication was an essential element of the project. “Young women are often not taken seriously, but my sincere interest as an adult turned it into a beautiful interaction,” she explains.

The girls often simply wanted someone to listen to their opinions,” she continued, referring to the 24-hour stream of news available on platforms like Instagram and TikTok: “They feel a great responsibility. I heard a lot of girls talking about their fears of climate change or wars.

“This generation receives a tremendous amount of information, and it is a very different reality from what I experienced growing up.” Although the conversations themselves are not included in the book “America’s Girls,” they helped shape the project, by establishing trust between the photographer and the participants, which generated the connecting thread to Verbeek’s warm style.