Façades de Grand-Popo

Jouni Kaipia

12.1.-10.2.2022

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 will receive their respective photograph.

Jouni Kaipia is an architect and photographic artist based in Helsinki, Finland. He travels the world pondering what it means to dwell on this globe. In his photographic work he mainly studies fellow humans and their relations with their built environment. He has displayed his photographs in several solo exhibitions, both in Finland and abroad. His previous exhibition was titled “Of Doors and Windows – Images of the In-Between” (2018). www.jounikaipia.com

Exhibition opening in Musée Karo. Photos: Julia Autio