Josèfa Ntjam (Artist Talk)
she/her
Sat May 31 | de Brakke Grond
Josefa Ntjam is a French artist, performer, and writer whose practice combines sculpture, photomontage, film, and sound. Gathering the raw material for her work from the internet, natural science books, and photographic archives, Ntjam employs the method of assemblage—of images, words, sounds, and stories—to deconstruct hegemonic discourses on notions of origin, identity, and race.
Her work weaves multiple narratives drawn from investigations into historical events, scientific functions, and philosophical concepts, which she confronts with references to African mythologies, ancestral rituals, religious symbolism, and science fiction. These seemingly heterogeneous discourses and iconographies are brought together in an effort to reclaim history while speculating on as-yet undetermined space-times—interstitial worlds where systems of perception and naming fixed entities (of identity) no longer function. From there, Ntjam composes utopian cartographies and ontological fictions in which technological fantasy, intergalactic travel, and hypothetical underwater civilisations become the matrix of an emancipatory practice fostering the emergence of inclusive, process-based, and resilient communities.
About the speaker
Josèfa Ntjam lives and works in Saint-Étienne. She studied in Amiens and Dakar at Cheikh Anta Diop University and graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure d’Art de Bourges in 2015 and the École Nationale Supérieure d’Art de Paris-Cergy, France, in 2017. She is a member of the Paris-based art and research collective Black(s) to the Future: blackstothefuture.com. Her work and performances has been shown at venues such as Triangle–Astérides (Marseille), the 60th Venice Biennale Collateral Event, and the LAS Foundation, among others.
