Villa Medici 2021-2022 Fellows

Like every year, September marks the arrival of the Fellows of the French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici! This new class of sixteen fellows, representing 10 artistic disciplines and 6 different nationalities, will be welcomed at Villa Medici for a one-year residency in creation, experimentation or research. As part of the programme, fellows will be provided with a residence grant, accommodation and a workspace.

The 2022-2023 Fellows are:

Samir Amarouche – Composition musicale, Mounir Ayache – Arts plastiques, Yasmina Benabderrahmane – Photographie, Hortense de Corneillan – Restauration du patrimoine, Lorraine de Sagazan – Mise en scène, Dorothée Dupuis – Commissariat d’exposition, François Durif – Littérature, Sivan Eldar – Composition musicale, Marion Grébert – Histoire de l’art, Bocar Niang – Arts plastiques, Lasseindra Ninja – Chorégraphie, Liv Schulman – Arts visuels, Anna Solal – Arts visuels, Sarah Vanuxem – Théories, Ariane Varela Braga – Histoire de l’art, Laura Vazquez – Littérature

During their residency, the Fellows will be invited to show their work in different occasions:

  • The Nuit Blanche, organized in the fall and curated by Saverio Verini, will be the occasion of a first exhibition of their work, offering the public a nocturnal stroll through the gardens and salons of Villa Medici;
  • Throughout the year, concerts, readings, lectures, and performances will be presented in the form of carte blanche to the Fellows and will involve international guest artists;
  • The end-of-year exhibition, a highlight of the summer season, will offer an overview of the diversity of the disciplines represented and the fertile crossroads that are created during the year between the Fellows’ projects. Saverio Verini, who accompanies the Fellows throughout their year of residence, will curate this exhibition;
  • In the fall of 2022, the Fellows of the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 classes will participate in ¡Viva Villa!, the festival of artists’ residencies created by Villa Medici in Rome, Casa de Velázquez in Madrid and Villa Kujoyama in Kyoto. ¡Viva Villa! will take place at the Collection Lambert in Avignon, curated by Victorine Grataloup and Stéphane Ibars. 

The 2021-2022 Fellows are:

Kaouther Adimi – Literature, Ivàn Argote – Visual Arts, Charlie Aubry – Visual Arts, Théodora Barat – Visual Arts, Samir Boumediene – Art History, Nidhal Chamekh – Visual Arts, Aude Fourel – Screenwriting, Marta Gentilucci – Musical Composition, Noémie Goddard – Architecture, Evangelia Kranioti – Photography, Marielle Macé – Literature, Benoît Maire – Visual Arts, Hèctor Parra Esteve – Musical Composition, Julie Pellegrin – Curatorship, Mathieu Peyroulet-Ghilini – Design, Guy Régis Jr. – Staging.

About the Fellows’ Open Call

Each year, the French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici organizes an international competition to select Fellows according to a criterion of excellence. The competition is open to French-speaking artists, creators and researchers, regardless of nationality. Candidates may apply in all disciplines of artistic creation and craftsmanship as well as in the history and theory of the arts, the restoration of works of art or monuments. Applications are examined by a jury of qualified personalities appointed each year by the French Ministry of Culture. The competition takes place in two stages : a first phase of study of the applications and a second phase of hearings of the pre-selected candidates. Information on the modalities and dates of the next competition can be found on Villa Medici’s website in the section “Residencies and fellows” The list of former fellows is available at this link.

For the 2021 selection, 599 applications were submitted, representing an increase of 42% compared to 2020. At the end of the selection process, the Minister of Culture appointed, by order of May 17, 2021, the sixteen fellows of the French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici for the 2021-2022 year.

The selection jury was composed of Sam Stourdzé, director of the French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici and president of the jury; Hortense Archambault, director of the MC93 – Maison de la Culture de Seine-Saint-Denis; Jean-Pierre Blanc, director of the Villa Noailles; Mohamed Bourouissa, artist; Cathy Bouvard, co-director of the Ateliers Médicis; Sébastien Delot, director-curator of the LaM – Lille Métropole Musée d’Art Moderne, d’Art Contemporain et d’Art Brut; Lucia Ronchetti, composer and artistic director of the Venice Music Biennale; François Quintin, advisor for the visual arts at the Directorate General of Artistic Creation, representing the Director General of Artistic Creation; Francesca Alberti, responsible for the art history department of the the French Academy in Rome representing the President of the Board of Directors of the the French Academy in Rome.

For the analysis of the applications, the jury relied on the expertise of sixteen personalities appointed within the administration of the State or its public institutions.

Key data

Applications :

  • 599 applications were submitted for the 2021-2022 open call, representing 647 applications, including 44 pairs and 2 triples.
  • 32 candidates were auditioned on May 6 and 7, 2021, including one pair.

2021-2022 Fellows :

  • There are 8 women and 8 men in the class.
  • The average age of the fellows in the class is 40.
  • This year, a stage director candidate was selected: Guy Régis Junior Jr. The last fellow in this discipline was Laurent Bazin in 2015-2016.

→ Download the press kits:

June 2021: press release for the appointment of the 2021-2022 Fellows
September 2021: press kit presenting the biographies and projects of the 2021-2022 Fellows

Cover image: the 2021-2022 fellows welcomed on June 30, 2021 at the Ministry of Culture