“Maybe the true purpose of my life is for my body, my sensations and my thoughts to become writing, in other words, something intelligible and universal, causing my existence to merge into the lives and heads of other people.” So writes Annie Ernaux in her 2022 Nobel Prize-winning book, Exteriors. Taking the form of journal entries, Ernaux’s book examines the human condition through snapshots of everyday life. The curator and writer Lou Stoppard used Exteriors as her inspiration for a research residency at Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris. Asking what Ernaux’s themes would look like visually, the exhibition features the work of Harry Callahan, Claude Dityvon, Dolorès Marat, Daido Moriyama, Janine Niepce, Issei Suda, Henry Wessel, and Bernard Pierre Wolff. The power of first-person narration shines. —Clara Molot