Hanne Van Assche
Somewhere in the middle
With two epicenters at its outer edges, it's no surprise we tend to explore America horizontally. There's an East and a West, and what lies in between is an arbitrary patchwork of states. Vast areas that are flown over, driven across, and rushed through to reach the other side.
These pictures take you to the middle. They cut right through the heart of America, from Texas all the way up to Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota. Places that evoke images of roadside diners, motels, mountain ranges, and endless highways. The real America. The mythical middle.
In a country where the concept of 'far' is stretched to the maximum, driving seems to be the only way to discover it. It takes time to readjust your sense of distance, especially when people suggest you drive another ten hours tonight to a nearby city. Or when they ask why you don't visit Barcelona more often since you live in Belgium.
The views flashing by your car window match your expectations so perfectly that it’s almost disorienting. Especially when you suddenly spot a Chinese restaurant disguised as a medieval castle. Or a cross the size of a wind turbine. Or a dinosaur planted in the middle of nowhere.
The landscape is scattered with random relics of different eras and cultures. Everything seems to be a miniature or magnification of something, warping your sense of scale and size. Sometimes you can't help but wonder if you are staring in the face of absurdity or ultimate freedom.
Should you even question it? The more people you meet, the more you understand there is no right or wrong behind the fence. You can do whatever you want on your hard-earned property, especially in a country built upon the very idea of freedom.
No one can convince you more of that American dream than the people living it. But they are also the ones who question it the most. They will tell you about building something from nothing, and about having to defend it fiercely. They will show you real American hospitality, but only once you have crossed their Keep Out sign. They will reminisce about years of hard work, and about losing it all in an instant.
They will whisper about responsibility and vulnerability. About hope and reality. Somewhere in the middle, you learn that freedom is an unreliable scale. You realize that all the people you meet are skillfully balancing their hopes and fears on it, trying to keep those scales from tipping over. Trying to keep them somewhere in the middle.
Charlotte Baert