Tic-Tac, time goes on in tune. hurry, from now on we must be constellation, intangible, neither transparent nor translucent, but overflowing […] They, we, you, I, no pronoun can hold us.
Josèfa Ntjam, I am nameless, 2020
Josèfa Ntjam is an artist, performer and writer whose practice combines sculpture, photomontage, film and sound. Collecting the raw material of her work from the internet, books on natural sciences and photographic archives, Ntjam uses assemblage – of images, words, sounds, and stories – as a method to deconstruct the grand narratives underlying hegemonic discourses on origin, identity and race. Her work weaves multiple narratives drawn from investigations into historical events, scientific functions and philosophical concepts, to which she confronts references to African mythology, ancestral rituals, religious symbolism and science-fiction. These apparently heterogeneous discourses and iconographies are marshalled together in an effort to re-appropriate History while speculating on not-yet-determined space-times – interstitial worlds where systems of perception and naming of fixed (id)entities no longer operate. From there, Ntjam composes utopian cartographies and ontological fictions in which technological fantasy, intergalactic voyages and hypothetical underwater civilizations become the matrix for a practice of emancipation that promotes the emergence of inclusive, processual and resilient communities.
Josèfa Ntjam was born in 1992 in Metz, France, and currently lives and works in Saint-Étienne, France. She studied in Amiens, France, Dakar, Senegal (Cheikh Anta Diop University) and graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure d’Art, Bourges, France (2015), and the École Nationale Supérieure d’Art, Paris-Cergy, France (2017).
In 2024, the artist was selected for a residency at LVMH Métiers d’Art, and participated in the official programme of collateral events of the 60th Venice Biennale with her solo exhibition, swell of spæ(c)ies, commissioned by LAS Foundation, Berlin, and presented at the Accademia di Belli Arti. Ntjam is currently participating in the 15th Gwangju Biennale, PANSORI–a soundscape of the 21st Century’, curated by Nicolas Bourriaud. In 2025, Ntjam will participate in the São Paulo Art Biennial, Brazil, as well as Momenta, Biennale de l’image, Montreal, Canada.
Solo exhibitions include Institut d’Art Contemporain – IAC, Villeurbanne, FR (2025 – forthcoming); swell of spæc(i)es, official collateral event of the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, commissioned by LAS Foundation, Berlin, Accademia di Belli Arti di Venezia and Palazzina Canonica, Venice, IT (2024); Une cosmogonies des océans, LVMH Métiers d’Art, Paris, FR (2024); Futuristic Ancestry, Fotografiska, New York, USA (2024); matter gone wild, Fondation Pernod-Ricard, Paris, FR (2023–24); Limestone Memories – un maquis sous les étoiles, NıCOLETTı, London (2023); Underground Resistance – Living Memories, The Photographers’ Gallery, London, UK (2022); When the Moon Dreamed of the Ocean, FACT, Liverpool, UK (2022); and we’ll kill them with love, CAC La Traverse, Alfortville, FR (2022); Molecular Genealogies, NıCOLETTı, London, UK (2021); and Allegoria, duo show with Kaeto Sweeney, Hordaland Art Center, Bergen, NO (2019).
Ntjam’s work and performances have been shown in international museums and exhibitions, including Barbican Art Gallery, London, UK; Arnolfini, Bristol, UK; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, NL; Centre Pompidou, Paris, FR; Palais de Tokyo, Paris, FR; Lafayette Anticipations, Paris, FR; LUMA, Arles, FR; Centre Pompidou, Metz, FR; MAMC+ – Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Saint-Etienne, FR; Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center, USA; Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, PT; Radius CCA, Delft, NL; Mucem, Marseille, FR; Africamuseum, Tervuren, BE; MuCAT – Musée des Cultures Contemporaines Adama Toungara, Abidjan, IC; WIELS, Brussels, BE; MAMA, Rotterdam, NE; and the 15th Biennale de Lyon, MAC Lyon, Lyon, FR.
Ntjam is a member of Paris-based art & research collective Black(s) to the Future:
https://blackstothefuture.com/
Ntjam’s work is part of a number of permanent collections, including LVMH, Paris, FR; TBA21 (Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection), Madrid, ES; Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (MACAAL), Marrakech, MA; MAMC+ – Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Saint-Etienne, FR; Institut d’Art Contemporain – IAC, Villeurbanne, FR; Fondation H, Montanarivo, MG; Centre national des arts plastiques (Cnap), Paris, FR; Fonds d’art contemporain – Paris Collections, FR; Fondation Villa Datris, L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, FR; FRAC Ile-de-France, Paris, FR; FRAC MECA Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Bordeaux, FR; FRAC Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand, FR; FRAC Alsace, Sélestat, FR; EIB Institute, Luxemburg; and Artothèque de Strasbourg, FR.
