Justinien Tribillon

Justinien Tribillon (France, 1989) is a curator, writer and editor whose work touches on different media and disciplines: social sciences, photography, architecture and history. In 2021, he presented the “Welcome to Borderland” exhibition on plant migration at the Venice Architecture Biennale. In 2023, he will curate and produce “Jachères”, an exploration of urban and suburban wastelands in northern France through art, design and architecture. Justinien Tribillon holds a PhD 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 socio-technical 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, The Architectural Review and AOC.

At Villa Medici, Justinien Tribillon is continuing his research into the rich and complex subject of the wig, with a view to mounting an exhibition devoted to this practice. The strange name “perruque” refers to the activity carried out by workers on company time, using company tools and materials, to make objects or repairs for themselves. An underground act, sometimes tolerated by management, wig-making is more often than not concealed, reprimanded and even dismissed. It’s a widespread practice, yet little known or documented. Justinien Tribillon’s residency in Rome will provide an opportunity to reflect on the mirroring between France and Italy. The exhibition project will bring together historical research and current questions about our relationship to work. It also offers particularly stimulating intellectual and curatorial challenges: how can we highlight a subaltern practice without institutionalizing it? How can we use space to question a practice rather than a collection of objects?