Shawn Hounkpatin

IN THE SAME LIGHT

In the Same Light is a series about the tenderness between loved ones. Not the kind we show to the world, but the kind we truly live. I grew up surrounded by women, almost exclusively, throughout my childhood. Aunts, cousins, and women close to the family who often came over to the house. I grew up watching them share their love: sitting together, doing each other’s hair before a night out, comforting one another through difficult times, laughing about things no one else would have understood. A love that was never spoken aloud, but was always there. While gathering memories for a family meal, I came across old photographs of my mother and her sisters. There was something in those images, a quiet warmth, a genuine closeness, that I wanted to find again and capture in the present.

Words by Shawn Hounkpatin

About Shawn Hounkpatin

Shawn Hounkpatin (b. 2001, Cotonou, Benin) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Cotonou, working in photography and video, across staged photography, still life, and short film. He is best known for images at the edge of the real and the surreal, built on movement, composition, and color.

His work is built around the use and creation of archives, drawing on West African stories and cultural history. His practice includes the photographic series Portrait of a Genius, In the Same Light, and Enchantress, the short films Birds Set Free and My Lover, and the series Ego Death.

Hounkpatin participated in the group exhibition Afrotropias in 2024, presented at Kraków Photomonth, Kraków, Poland; the National Ethnographic Museum, Warsaw, Poland; and Freedom Park, Lagos, Nigeria in 2024, and took part in the New York Portfolio Review the same year. In 2025, he completed a residency at Finding Etherea, Grand-Popo, Benin, devoted to an exploration of rhythm. In 2026, he presented Enchantress at Finding Etherea during the Lopo Lopo Festival, Grand-Popo, Benin.