Sébastien Kheroufi

Sébastien Kheroufi grew up in the working-class neighbourhoods of Hauts-de-Seine and the Emmaüs hostels in Paris, between his mother’s French culture and his father’s Algerian culture. After obtaining a diploma in mechanics and working for several years as a mechanic in a garage, a cleaner, a dishwasher in a restaurant and a bus driver, he enrolled at the École Supérieure d’Art Dramatique in Paris. Since graduating, Sébastien has had close working relationships with the Ateliers Médicis and the Théâtre National de la Colline. In June 2023, his first production, Antigone by Sophocles, was presented at the Théâtre du Soleil, as well as his first performance at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Since September 2023, he has been an associate artist of the CDN – Théâtre des Quartiers d’Ivry and winner of the FORTE programme. In February 2024, he will present the second chapter of his triptych, Par les villages by Peter Handke, at TQI, Centre Pompidou and Azimut.

His project at Villa Medici

Since leaving school, Sébastien Kheroufi has felt the urge to create a historical, social and family fresco through a triptych spanning our different generations. The starting point is his grandparents and the Algerian war in the 1960s, Sophocles’ Antigone and Ismene’s exile, France and its large housing estates. Then we look back to our parents and the 1990s, through Nova and Peter Handke’s Par les villages. And finally we write the third chapter. That of the children. The scars of children. Writing in order not to forget. His residence at Villa Medici will allow him to write his first words. He wants to question our history, to find the right words, away from fantasies and clichés, to go beyond the permanent illegitimacy that prevents us from writing and, in this way, participate in the creation of the missing narratives.

© Welane Navarre