Olivier Coulon-Jablonka

After studying philosophy and training at the Conservatoire national supérieur d'Art dramatique as an actor, Olivier Coublon-Jablonka directed his first plays, Heiner Müller's Quartett and Mauser, and Brecht's The Decision. In 2005, he founded the Moukden-Théâtre collective and started working on montages bringing together dramatic texts and contemporary documentary materials, thus creating Les Illusions vagues (The Vague Illusions), Des Batailles (Battles), Chez les Nôtres (At Home), Pierre ou les Ambiguïtés (Pierre, or the Ambiguities). An associate artist of the CDN of Sartrouville, he recently directed Paris nous appartient (We Own Paris), a show about the urban renewal projects of the Grand Paris. In 2014, the Théâtre de La Commune commissioned a “topical play.” Together with Barbarba Métais-Chastanier and Camille Plagnet, he walked the streets of Aubervilliers, met with a collective made up of 80 undocumented immigrants who, having been evicted from several buildings, now reside in what used to be an unemployment office. After listening to what they had to say, he asked eight of them to come on stage and tell their story.

Portrait of Olivier Coulon-Jablonka © DR