Lvmh Métiers d’Art presents "Une cosmogonie d’océans", celebrating the artistic residence of Josèfa Ntjam. Showcasing twelve sculptures installed in an abandoned space, Ntjam offers an immersion into mythological tales and ancestral divinities from West and Central Africa. These characters were born from the artist’s earlier digital works, including films and installations, combining scientific research, socio-philosophical concepts, and mythologies with new technologies. Josèfa developed a series of characters for her residence, like a proposal for new techno-artisanal iterations that mimic an ancient future.

Since the establishment of Lvmh Métiers d’Art in 2015, its artistic residency program has aimed to forge new links between artists and artisans. The selected resident is provided raw materials and is guided for a year through the process of shaping them using tools, methods, and techniques specific to the Lvmh Métiers d’Art house that will produce the artist’s project. Seven budding talents have already benefited from the know-how of manufacturers, artisans, and producers who are relatively unknown to the general public, even though each one of these houses is a repository of specialized expertise in fine leathers and metals for leather goods and jewelry.

For the entire year 2023, Josèfa Ntjam worked in the workshops of the Jade Groupe, based in Paris and Portugal, to create her exhibition a cosmogony of the oceans.

The exhibition titled a cosmogony of the oceans will run until 25 March in Paris on Rue de Richelieu, just a stone’s throw from the future headquarters of Lvmh Métiers d’Art, which will open its doors before the summer, bringing together under one roof the showrooms of its houses on all five continents. “The Jade artisans transformed the impossible into reality,” said the French artist, who envisioned sculptures nearly two meters high, even though the company specialized in small components and jewelry for major luxury houses. This challenge of the scale was compounded by technical and production difficulties that prompted Jade technicians to rethink their tools, design, and production processes, and range of materials, colors, and finishes… Josèfa Ntjam’s works in metal are produced in colors that were hitherto unthinkable for the artisans of Jade Groupe, acquired by Lvmh Métiers d’Art in 2021.

Une cosmogonie d’océans - Josèfa Ntjam
Until March 25, 2024
Lvmh Métiers d'Art - Jade Groupe
73 Rue de Richelieu
75001 Paris