A decade away

Ten years ago, as an 18 year old, I left the Netherlands for a year of high school in the US. Little did I know the time I was about to spend in Arkansas would become one of the most intense experiences of my life. Right from the start, a lot of things went sideways. I ended up living with four different host families, went to church three times a week and encountered a lot of racism and homophobia. Funny enough, I was culture shocked and felt right at home all at the same time. Coming from the Netherlands, the contrast couldn’t be bigger. Yet making a connection to my country surroundings and its people was easy. Despite our differences in background, I felt a connection with the people I met along the way on a deep and universal level. They have made a lasting impression on me and the South has endlessly fascinated me ever since.

After a decade, I decided to go back to revisit this precious time of my life. To portray my memories, the people and the South as I know it. With all that it entails: the good, the bad and the ugly. Being back was both beautiful and heartbreaking. Unfortunately I’ve lost multiple old classmates and friends to drug overdoses, suicide and car wrecks. It seems finding your way in life is not an easy task down South. In this series I want to show the South and its inhabitants as seen through my eyes, with all their contrast, beauty and struggle. It’s my declaration of love to a place and its people that will forever be my home.

In A Decade Away, Dutch photographer Michèle Giebing returns to Arkansas to revisit people and places she encountered in her high school years. The series presents intimate portraits of her surroundings and the way they’ve changed over the past decade.

A Decade Away portrays people whose lives are often lived in stark contrast to the American Dream. Its objective is to showcase the changes one goes through while experiencing life’s many contrasts. It documents the duality of everyday life in the rural Arkansas, where beauty is fragile and endurance is key to survival. It’s about self preservation and self destruction, hopes and fears, trials and tribulations, vulnerability and pride, shared similarities and sociocultural differences. But first and foremost, A Decade Away is a tribute to friends, family and the beauty that hides in the raw essence of life in contemporary America.

However, the duality isn’t just in the pictures. The series also covers the photographer’s personal views on a place she knows as her second home. During shooting, Michèle came to realize that the series is just as much about the photographer herself as the people in it. In a way, it forms a counterpart to her own life in the Netherlands. As such, all portraits are square and in black and white, depicting limited choice and the burden of boundaries.

As a whole, A Decade Away reflects stories that too often remain unheard. Shot from an outsiders perspective as well as up close and personal, the series is an intimate study into lives lived differently while re-evaluating the connection between photographer and subject.

About the photographer
Michèle Giebing (1990) is a Dutch (film) photographer whose work revolves around the intimacies and beauty in the world around us. Using analogue equipment, her portraits of people, places and objects are immersive and emotive observations of life’s many facets. Her portfolio strongly focusses on the topics of human interaction, idiosyncrasy and ambient moods.