FAÇADES DE GRAND-POPO
Museé Karo, Grand-Popo, Benin. 2022
We all have façades,
façades with fundamentally similar features:
a door in the middle and higher up two windows for the light to get in.
Be they newly built and smooth – or rough and weathered through many seasons,
behind every façade, rooms of different configuration…
behind every façade, a labyrinth with no end…
behind every façade, a universe of its own…
Some façades are more permeable than others,
some windows brighten up when you look at them,
some windows shine like a light in the middle of darkness,
some windows invite you in.
Then there are façades more opaque,
there are windows with shutters closed,
there are windows with tinted glass,
there are windows that only send back a reflection, like mirrors.
But don’t give up.
As high as the threshold sometimes is,
once you step over it, you might realise:
this too is a friend’s house.
Photographs depicting inhabitants of Grand-Popo were taken in 2016 and 2019.
After the closing of the exhibition, each model received their respective photograph.
