Josèfa Ntjam is an artist, performer and writer whose practice combines sculpture, photomontage, film and sound. Gleaning 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 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.
Ntjam was born 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). Solo and duo exhibitions include and we’ll kill them with love, CAC La Traverse, Alfortville, France (2022); Molecular Genealogies, NıCOLETTı, London, UK (2021) and Allegoria, duo show with Kaeto Sweeney, Hordaland Art Center, Bergen, Norway (2019). Ntjam’s work and performances have been shown in international exhibitions, including Oceanic Imaginaries, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands (performance, 2022); Breaking Water, Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center, United States (group exhibition, 2022); Globalisto. A Philosophy in Flux, Musée d’art moderne et contemporain MAMC+, Saint-Etienne, France (2022); Emotions are Oceans, Radius CCA, Delft, Netherlands (group exhibition, 2022); Europa Oxalá, three-part group exhibition at MUCEM, Marseille, France, Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, Portugal, and Africamuseum, Tervuren, Belgium; (2021–22); MEMORIA: récits d’une autre histoire, Frac Nouvelle-Aquitaine MECA, Bordeaux, France (2021), and MuCAT – Musée des Cultures Contemporaines Adama Toungara, Abidjan, Ivory Coast (2022); Drift: Art and Dark Matter, residency and exhibition at Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, Ontario, Canada (2021); Anticorps, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France ( 2020–21); Paysages alentour, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2020); Risquons-tout, WIELS, Brussels, Belgium (2020); Climate Knowledges, MAMA, Rotterdam, Netherlands (2020); 15th Biennale de Lyon, MAC Lyon, Lyon, France (2019); and Feminism, Gender, Resistance – Act 3, Arnolfini, Bristol, United Kingdom (2019). Upcoming projects include Open Space, The Photographer’s Gallery, London (2022); Les Portes du possible. Art & science-fiction, Centre Pompidou, Metz, France (2022); Paris+ by Art Basel (solo with NıCOLETTı, 2022), and a solo exhibition at FACT, Liverpool, UK (2022–23).
Ntjam is a member of Paris-based art & research collective Black(s) to the Future.
Ntjam’s work is part of a number of private and public collections, including FRAC Alsace, Sélestat, France; EIB Institute, Luxembourg; and Artothèque de Strasbourg, France.
As of September 2022
