Justinien Tribillon
Justinien Tribillon (France, 1989) is a curator, writer and publisher whose work addresses different media and disciplines: the social sciences, photography, architecture and history. In 2021, he presented the exhibition “Welcome to Borderland”, dedicated to plant migration at the Venice Architecture Biennale. In 2023, he curated and produced “Jachères”, an exploration of urban and peri-urban wastelands in the North of France through art, design and architecture.
Justinien Tribillon holds a doctorate in urban planning from the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London and is the author of a thesis on the Boulevard Périphérique de Paris as a sociotechnical artifact. Co-founder of Migrant Journal, a six-issue magazine exploring migration in all its forms, he now contributes as a journalist and architecture critic to various publications, including The Guardian and The Architectural Review, AOC.
At the French Academy in Rome, Justinien Tribillon is continuing his research into the rich and complex subject of moonlighting, with a view to producing an exhibition devoted to this practice. The strange name, “moonlighting”, refers to the activity of the worker carried out during their working hours, with the company’s tools and materials, aimed at making objects or repairs for themselves. Moonlighting represents an underground act, sometimes tolerated by the management, but which is most often hidden, and reprimanded, to the point of dismissal. This is a widespread practice, yet little-known and rarely documented. Justinien Tribillon’s residence in Rome will allow for a mirror reflection between France and Italy. The exhibition project will establish a dialogue between historical research and current questions about our relationship to work. It also offers particularly stimulating intellectual and curatorial challenges: what is the best way to highlight a subordinate practice without institutionalising it? How can we question a practice within a space, rather than a collection of objects?
Photo portrait © Daniele Molajoli
Video portrait © Laurent Perreau pour l’Académie de France à Rome – Villa Médicis