Annie Ernaux wrote down the impressions inspired by the anecdotes she observed during her routine transit through the public spaces of Cergy-Pontoisel. “I have sought to describe reality as through the eyes of a photographer and preserve the mystery and opacity of the lives I encounter,” Ernaux warned.

British curator and writer Lou Stoppard dedicated her artistic residency at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie to establish a relationship between the collections of said artistic center and the writing of the French author. The research has resulted in an exhibition and a book of the same name,   Exteriors. A series of photographs, mostly taken in France throughout the second half of the 20th century, and belonging to different authors - among them Harry Callahan, Garry Winogrand, Hiro, Luigi Ghirri, Martine Frank, William Klein, Issei Suda and Daido Moriyama—take the viewer, or the reader, into the revealing urban choreography.