In American Girls, Eva Verbeeck has photographed subjects who matched her girlhood fantasy of being an American teen. The work was created across the United States where Verbeeck met young women who shared the common search for identity and agency and in her subjects, Verbeeck recognised herself as a girl. I grew up in Tessenderlo, a small farm town in the north of Belgium with one factory. The social scene was a central square with a church on it, a Monday farmers market, and a twice ayear country fair. An American girl was a big idea for me. She was not one specific person or had one specific look or feel. Cheerleaders or science nerds or goths or punks, any sort of subculture populated an alternate universe built from the movies, TV shows and comic books we devoured.