Menu
Born in 1992 in Australia, in the suburbs of Sydney, Justin Follenfant moved to the suburbs of Paris in 1997, and then to Grenoble a year later. He started writing at the age of twelve, first to ward off insomnia and then to make his friends smile. In 2010, he left for Lyon to study Anthropology and Education Sciences. From then on, fieldwork and the focus on otherness, key concepts in these disciplines, have been accompanying the diversity of his practices.
Since adolescence, writing has never left him, but in various forms. At first, it was writing for music, with his rap group Deux Lyricists (Two Lyricists) – 6 albums in 10 years, and concerts in a multitude of places. Then, after sudden family events, he sought freedom in other rhythms, silences and the momentum of the sentence. He then began writing poetry and published texts, notably for the Folazil publishing house.
Encounters with musicians and authors, gave him the desire to share his precious tools that give meaning to his daily life. Then, he followed a training course at the Faculty of Letters in Montpellier, specialising in writing workshops, and learned different techniques from poetry, novels and theatre.
For the past 8 years, he has been designing and running creative writing workshops for people who are often far removed from writing. For him, the diversity of speech and meaning that flows through our cities, deserves to find unique means of expression. Thanks to the Vénissieux theatre, the Tannerie theatre in Bourg en Bresse, the Richard Foundation (which welcomes teenagers with multiple disabilities), but also children’s homes and other cultural and social places in Lyon and the surrounding area, he’s been able to teach diversity and share his passions and methods. His workshops allow the light that resides in each one of us, to find its own words and to make its way in the light of the day.
