Josèfa Ntjam

Josèfa Ntjam is a multidisciplinary artist born in Metz, France, in 1992. She lives and works in Saint-Étienne, and her practice encompasses sculpture, photomontage, performance, film, and writing. Drawing raw material from the internet and the fields of natural science, Ntjam uses collage as a central method, bringing together images, words, sounds, and stories to deconstruct the grand narratives that underpin hegemonic accounts of origin, identity, and history. Her work often develops through close investigations of historical events, philosophical concepts, and the functions of science. These inquiries are interwoven with references to mythology, ancestral rituals, religious symbolism, and science fiction, creating complex constellations in which different forms of knowledge and narrative intersect. Rather than treating these references as fixed categories, Ntjam combines them to question established systems of classification and to open alternative ways of imagining history and identity. Central to her practice is the reappropriation of history through narrative constructions that explore possible futures and “worlds between worlds.” In these speculative spaces, conventional systems for perceiving and naming fixed identities are disrupted, allowing other forms of relation and belonging to emerge. Her use of collage operates both formally and conceptually, bringing heterogeneous materials and temporalities into dialogue and challenging linear or singular accounts of origin. Politics and poetics are therefore closely intertwined in Ntjam’s work. Her sculptures, images, performances, films, and texts construct utopian spaces and ontological fictions in which questions of identity, history, science, and collective existence can be reconsidered. Through these processes, her practice proposes forms of emancipation based on the emergence of multiple, evolving, and resilient communities.