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Annie Ernaux. Journal du dehors

During its closure for major renovation work (May 2025 – 2027), the Musée de l’Imprimerie et de la Communication Graphique steps beyond its walls and into public space.

From spring to autumn 2025, Journal du dehors (Exteriors) by Annie Ernaux will appear throughout the streets of Lyon.
A selection of around thirty excerpts from the book will be displayed on building façades, in cultural venues, bookshops, schools, and libraries — offering an immersive journey into the world of the author.

This initiative also celebrates Lyon’s entry into the UNESCO Creative Cities of Literature network.

Published in 1993 by Gallimard, Journal du dehors captures the emerging cityscape of the 1980s and early 1990s — a world of glass and steel, escalators and hypermarkets, where consumerism shapes lives as much as it isolates them.
Through her gaze on these anonymous urban landscapes, Annie Ernaux invites us to question our relationship with place, with others, and with ourselves.

Each excerpt will be accompanied by a unique typeface — characters designed by women typographers, giving every fragment a distinct visual voice that resonates with the stories it carries.
All of these creations will be brought together in a dedicated publication, tracing their origins and inspirations — a way to “make a museum” differently, by highlighting those who shape writing in both the literal and figurative sense, with a special focus on women creators.

At the end of the project, the texts and their formats will be exhibited at the Lyon City Archives from September to December 2025, extending the reflection on the power of words in urban space.

A project in motion, between inside and outside, where literature and graphic design meet, are read, and lived — around the corner of a street or across the face of a building.

exemple ernaux 1
Conception graphique : Syndicat
Explore the booklet (in French): Annie Ernaux, Journal du dehors

Journal du dehors

The choice of Annie Ernaux’s Journal du dehors was an obvious one.
Starting with its title: to write “the outside” is to take the risk of reaching out to the other, to capture the imprint of the world in its most everyday and elusive forms. For the Musée de l’Imprimerie et de la Communication Graphique, it is also a natural way to conceive its off-site action, in direct dialogue with the city.

Through brief, incisive fragments, Annie Ernaux casts a sharp gaze on the spaces she calls the “Ville nouvelle” — the new town of the 1980s and 1990s, a world of shopping centers, escalators, and glass façades. This world, at once fascinating and repellent, becomes under her pen a mirror held up to our own urban lives.

The very form of Journal du dehors, with its conciseness and evocative power, invites itself to be deployed in public space: making bursts of literature emerge on façades, shop windows, and walls, responding differently to the noise of commercial imagery.

This project is fully in line with the museum’s identity: an institution attentive to graphic transformations and the multiple writings of the contemporary world. It also resonates with Lyon’s 2024 entry into the UNESCO Creative Cities of Literature network, affirming the importance of books, reading, and words in urban space.

With Journal du dehors, the whole city becomes an open page.

Drawing letters: a living art to rediscover

A type designer draws every letter of the alphabet, every number, every symbol — from the exclamation mark to punctuation signs.
They create complete sets called “typefaces” or “fonts,” mastering a precise vocabulary: serifs, connections, body sizes, weights… a true grammar of typographic design, essential to giving life to new alphabets.

Originally, typography made it possible to print texts using movable metal type, a revolution started by Gutenberg around 1450. Today, type designers work on computers, refining every curve and counter-shape, often commissioned by cultural institutions, companies, or advertising agencies.

The Musée de l’Imprimerie et de la Communication Graphique carefully preserves these creations — in the form of metal fonts, but also printed specimens showcasing the richness and diversity of contemporary alphabets.

Among type designers, women remain rare, and the museum has the privilege of exhibiting their creativity and expertise. This project aims to highlight female type designers from 1984 to today and partly restore this imbalance in representation and preservation.

You will find creations by Selina Bernet, Giliane Cachin, Amélie Dumont, Cecilia Gérard, Susan Kare, Margot Lévèque, Zuzana Licko, Anne Seseke, Samira Schneuwly, Coline Sunier & Charles Mazé, Stéphanie Vilayphiou & Alexandre Leray, My-Lan Thuong, and Carol Twombly.

exemple ernaux 3
Conception graphique : Syndicat

Our partners 

Throughout the streets, façades, and cultural venues of Lyon, Annie Ernaux’s Journal du dehors unfolds.
With outdoor posters and indoor installations, each location contributes in its own way to this literary stroll.
Display periods and access conditions may vary by partner — so keep your eyes open and be ready to be surprised around every corner.

 

exemple ernaux 2
Conception graphique : Syndicat