In exploring the political and utopian dimensions of the oceans, with “swell of spæc(i)es,” the artist deconstructs established narratives on themes such as slavery, colonization, capitalism, and environmental crises.
The first exhibition presented outside Berlin by the itinerant LAS Art Foundation, swell of spæc(i)es is an otherworldly environment created by artist, performer, and writer Josèfa Ntjam through the assembly of images, words, sounds, and stories as a method to deconstruct the grand narratives underpinning hegemonic discourses. Ntjam’s artistic practice explores the political and utopian dimensions of the oceans, vessels of stories of domination – from slavery to colonization, capitalism to environmental and humanitarian crises – as well as resistance, emancipation, and creation. In this imaginative landscape, plankton serves as a point of convergence between the deep ocean and outer space, between biological and mythical realms, between possible pasts and alternative futures. Staged in two locations – the courtyard of the Academy of Fine Arts and the Institute of Marine Sciences – the exhibition proposes a new myth of creation, shaped by ancient and emerging ways of conceiving the universe.
In the space at the Academy of Fine Arts, designed by the architectural studio UNA-UNLESS, a blue-violet triangular prism appears to have fallen from space, intertwining with the Renaissance architecture of the building. Its geometry contrasts with the organic forms emerging within the interior environment, made from innovative materials like bio-sourced resin and reishi mycelium. A membrane-like form rises from the ground, diffusing electroacoustic frequencies, while fragments of narrative emanate from two jellyfish-like “sound showers.” In the video projected onto the curved LED wall, which blends 3D animation and aquarium footage, interspecies characters move, synthesized using artificial intelligence and other digital tools, including 3D models of marine life, scans of West African statues housed in museum collections, and reproductions of photographs depicting decolonial independence movements.
At the ISMAR Palazzina Canonica, an AI-based interface allows visitors to generate their own hybrid species by merging Ntjam’s data collection with plankton photographs produced by ISMAR’s flow cytometer, an instrument used to classify organisms found in seawater samples taken 16 kilometers offshore. By populating this virtual ecosystem with locally generated creatures, the public is invited to join in the process of disseminating ancestral stories, becoming active participants in the exhibition.
