‘I felt the urge to transcribe the scenes,’ writes French author Annie Ernaux in her 2021 book Exteriors, which takes the form of random journal entries and won the Nobel Prize in Literature the following year. ‘Words and gestures of unknown people, who are never to be seen again, graffiti scribbled on walls, no sooner dry than hastily erased; sentences overheard on the radio and news items read in the papers. Anything that, in some way or another, moved me, upset me or angered me.’
The product of an April 2022 research residency by curator and writer Lou Stoppard, the new photography exhibition ‘Exteriors’ at Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris (until 25 May 2024) offers a considered exploration of the relationship between Ernaux’s written works and photographic mediums. Spanning from the 1940s to 2021 and countries including France, the USA, Italy, Japan, Singapore and the UK, the showcased images bring to life the universal themes prevalent in Ernaux's writing and the juxtaposition between public façades and private realities.
