Inside Josèfa Ntjam’s mesmerising, immersive vision of distant futures

The rhythms of the sea, the moon’s gravitational pull, the origins of life, ancestral stories, decay, renewal, futurology and cosmic matter are just a few of the monumental ideas involved in the conception of Josèfa Ntjam’s extraordinary new exhibition swell of spæc(i)es. The visionary artist’s show at this year’s Venice Biennale (commissioned by LAS Art Foundation) resists being condensed here into a few paragraphs – it looks from micro-organisms to the solar system, from the depths of the oceans to outer space, and from ancient past to the distant future. Using AI, 3D animation, film, sound, text, light, sculpture, spoken word, performance, and photomontage, the Saint-Étienne-based artist draws on natural sciences, the internet, religious symbolism and ritual, African mythology, science fiction and much more to build worlds and epic mythologies of her own.

The artist herself is cautious of how to “introduce” the exhibition, given the ways in which, through the work, she is trying to collapse the idea of a linear chronology and, instead, create the sensation of temporal and spacial interconnectedness. “An introduction is something that I try to avoid, but I think we can say that this project is really about sciences and mythology,” she tells Dazed in a conversation over Zoom amid the install of her show. “I’m also obsessed with the ocean and any type of interspecies. The landscapes [in swell of spæc(i)es] are also always in between, so you don't really know if you are outer space at one point or in the bottom of the ocean. Everything is fluid.”

Set across two sites at this year’s Biennale, the concept for the work also takes inspiration from the water on which the city of Venice was built (and threatens to return to). While the satellite site (at the Instituto di Scienze Marine’s Palazzina Canonica) contains an interactive element in which visitors can use AI participate in the creation of fictional marine creatures, the main installation (at Academia di Belle Arti di Venezia) is an immersive environment featuring a mesmerising cyclical film blending 3D animations, AI and other digital tools with pre-existing footage of aquariums and accompanied by a soundscape created by composer Fatima Al Qadiri. Taking inspiration from creation stories – such as the Dog myth of Amma, in which a god created the stars by hurling rocks into the night sky – landscapes unfold into sea beds and outer space gives way to marine life and, throughout, a hypnotic motif of snakes recur and recede, devouring stars and emitting planets. She explains, “There’s a mythological story I love about a snake coming from outer space creating life on Earth.”

Plankton is another recurring presence, acting as the connective tissue which brings so many aspects of the exhibition together. The artist liaised with scientists at Cardiff University as well as the Instituto di Scienze Marine to discuss this deceptively profound form of marine life. “Plankton turns into sedimentation in the bottom of the ocean, it created all the layers of sedimentation that we that we find in mountains and cliffs. Everything is totally linked to the plant,” Ntjam says. “A thing I really love is that plankton is carried by the ocean’s currents – they don't swim at all, they just drift. And I love that because they tell the story of the ocean. Plankton can act as a representation of how water can carry memory in the bottom of the ocean – in the layers of sedimentation – but also through the water itself. Plankton are really carriers of history.”

“I think that now we are totally beyond science fiction. I really have the sensation that now technology is also faster than us” – Josèfa Ntjam

Might these organic materials be, in a sense, encoded with a unique type of information about our past and future? “I think so yes,” she says. “But if you ask a scientist, for sure, they will say no.” Which brings us back to the idea of science fiction, which animates so much of Ntjam’s practice. Given the pace and scope of developments in the field of science, does she feel that our sense of what constitutes science fiction has changed? “I think that now we are totally beyond science fiction. Fiction is on the same temporality as reality so it’s kind of weird. I really have the sensation that now technology is also faster than us.”

Having immersed herself in future theory and academic speculation about future worlds, what are Ntjam’s predictions? Does she think we’re all as fucked as it sometimes feels we might be? “To be sincere, for the last month, I’m not the most optimistic person. For sure, we have to continue to create new possibilities and new futures – we don’t have a choice. But I really have the sensation that everything is about how to survive in this in this world because it’s moving too fast and everything is so dense in terms of information,” she reflects. “This the first time in my life when I don’t quite know how to project myself into the future because, even maybe a few years ago, I was still able to do that. But now, I really have this sensation that everything is about the present and it’s much harder to envision what the future will look like.” She concludes, “So, to me, it's super important that we need to create our own space of imagination in order to keep alive. If you kill that, for sure, no one will survive. Because I think imagination is also about hope. It's also about joy, sometimes about sadness. But art, for sure, is one of the things keeping me, us, alive.”

Josèfa Ntjam: swell of spæc(i)es is commissioned by LAS Art Foundation and is a Collateral
Event of the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. The main installation is situated at Academia di Belle Arti di Venezia and the satellite space is at the Instituto di Scienze Marine’s Palazzina Canonica. The exhibition is running from April 20 until November 24, 2024.