The subjects of Strangely Familiar are mainly the people of small travelling shows and circuses in Eastern Europe, athletes and dancers, yet it is almost impossible to tell from the photographs what these men, women and children actually do in front of an audience. Trapeze, or tightrope? Animals such as dogs, birds, horses and monkeys? Are the children second- or third-generation circus people? There is so little information in the pictures that the viewer instinctively fills in what is unknown and is led along by the story the image carries. Nothing is obvious and nothing is taken for granted, a puzzle with many possible solutions that recalls the work of Diane Arbus, and like Arbus's, Michal Chelbin's pictures burn themselves into the mind. Created through trust and balance between photographer and subject, in a state much like that of the acrobats who hold themselves high above the ground, they are a record that is not literal yet not false, deliberate but made only of truth.