“The Multilayered Realities Explored by Josèfa Ntjam”
**Josèfa Ntjam’s “Swell of Spæc(i)es” at Venice Biennale: Exploring the Intersection of Myth, Marine Life, and Space**
At the prestigious Venice Biennale, known for bringing together thought-provoking contemporary art, Josèfa Ntjam’s installation “*swell of spæc(i)es*” has caught the attention of art enthusiasts and critics alike with its immersive fusion of mythology, marine life, and futuristic afrofuturism. The exhibition is an eclectic mix of digital art, animated characters, marine biology, ancient Indigenous tales, and speculative cosmology, creating a mesmerizing experience that stretches across many dimensions of existence—from the deep seas to the furthest stretches of the universe.
### A Bottomless Narrative: The Loop of Creation
The video installation, commissioned by LAS Art Foundation, is displayed inside a triangular room that invites visitors to step into a fluid narrative without a clear beginning or end. Attendees settle into cushioned seating or explore interactive elements—such as glowing egg-like structures and jellyfish sculptures crafted from innovative sunflower oil resin. The soundscape further transports viewers into Ntjam’s fictive universe, where a continuously looping video on the curved LED screen tells a fragmented story of creation.
At the center of this fragmented journey, Ntjam takes inspiration from two profound Indigenous creation myths. The first originates from the Dogon people of Mali, detailing the goddess Amma, who cast stars into the sky and created water spirits to form the oceans. The second is derived from the Huaorani community in Ecuador, highlighting a serpent that devoured stars, transforming them into trees and rivers.
### Merging Worlds Through Digital Assemblage
Central to Ntjam’s process is her method of “digital assemblage”—a style that mirrors the interconnectedness she portrays in her themes. Using cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence and digital tools, Ntjam blends marine organisms with traditional West African totemic sculptures to create new, digital life forms. Some viewers describe these transformations as chimeric entities that range from microscopic scales to cosmic vastness, reinforcing her theme of shifting between universes within universes.
In one poignant example, a serpent in the video opens its mouth, metaphorically swallowing the viewer into a world that blurs the line between a marine ecosystem and an alien planet. In these immersive moments, Ntjam invites us into new frontiers of thought, imagining otherworldly life forms and cosmic landscapes while juxtaposing them with more familiar environmental features from Earth.
### Futuristic Ancestrality and Alter-Futurism
In the accompanying exhibition notes, Ntjam discusses her ambition to cultivate what she calls “futuristic ancestrality.” She draws on the philosophical concept of “alter-futurism,” an idea originated by Mawena Yehouessi. Alter-futurism resists the singular lineage or linear timeline that is characteristic of Western culture’s understanding of time and existence. Ntjam’s rejection of a “single origin of species” enables her creation story to expand infinitely, accommodating not only different cultural beliefs but also diverse scientific narratives. In her layers of cosmic and oceanic creation, she depicts both as realms ripe for exploration, but also settings often exploited by colonial forces. In contrast, Ntjam reclaims these territories as imagined spaces for liberation and speculative futures.
By blurring historical and futuristic genres, Ntjam brings attention to the ocean and cosmos as interconnected sites of possibilities and resistance. Her use of afrofuturist and science-fiction inspired storytelling hints at the capacity for art to envision worlds and narratives beyond colonial and societal constraint.
### A Link Between Sea and Stars: The Role of Plankton
Perhaps most fascinating is Ntjam’s focus on plankton—a microscopic organism that serves as a metaphoric bridge between the sea and space in her film. Ntjam collaborated with marine biologists in Venice to research these small but ecologically significant creatures. Plankton famously exhibit star-like bioluminescence during their lifecycle, mirroring the cosmological elements found in her depiction of the universe. As they fall to the ocean bed with their hard, calcified shells, they eventually form limestone—a material integral to Earth’s geological history.
Interestingly, limestone was recently identified among the remnants of a distant planet orbiting a dead star, suggesting that there might be shared evolutionary features between Earth and other cosmic environments. In *swell of spæc(i)es*, Ntjam intertwines these scientific discoveries with her own afrofuturist interpretations, demonstrating how life on Earth is deeply connected to distant, unfamiliar places in the universe. The plankton, in this sense, symbolizes the delicate interflows between life, death, fossils, and celestial bodies.
### Expanding the Creation Story: A Wider Universe of Possibilities
Through her research, Ntjam transcends traditional creation narratives by crafting her own version—a non-origin story that celebrates multiplicity and indefiniteness. Here, the origin of species splinters into numerous potentialities, tethered