Josèfa Ntjam in collaboration with Jade

Twelve sculptures installed in an abandoned space: Josèfa Ntjam offers us an immersion into the depths, fed by mythological tales from West and Central Africa. New embodiments of ancestral divinities, hybrid beings from some undefinable time. 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 the LVMH Métiers d’Art Résidence Artistique, like a proposal for new techno-artisanal iterations that speak to us of an ancient future, a timeframe that never ceases to slip away.
Since the establishment of LVMH Métiers d’Art in 2015, the aim of its artistic residency program has been to forge new links between artists and craftsmen. The selected resident is provided raw materials – often rare, luxurious, different from what they are accustomed to working with – and is guided over the course of 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.
For the entire year 2023, Josèfa Ntjam worked in the workshops based in Paris and in Portugal of the Jade Groupe, specialized in luxury metalworking, acquired by LVMH Métiers d’Art in 2021.
“The artisans at Jade transformed the impossible into reality,” says the French artist, who envisioned sculptures nearly two metres high, even though the company is specialized in small components and jewelry for major luxury houses. This challenge of scale was compounded by technical and production difficulties that prompted Jade technicians to rethink their tools, design and production processes, and range of materials, colours, and finishes...

“This artistic residency pushed us out of our comfort zone,” says Pedros Domingos, the project manager in charge of Joséfa Ntjam’s work.
 “Each residency surprises us for the extent of its impact,” observes Jean Baptiste Voisin, LVMH Group Strategy Director and President of LVMH Métiers d’Art. "The artist's passion quickly finds an echo in that of the craftsman. These residences are also extraordinary from a human perspective. They foster relationships, they bring teams together."
Matteo de Rosa, CEO of the group adds, "At LVMH Métiers d'Arts we firmly believe that creativity is a fundamental tool for generating innovation. By encouraging artists and artisans to explore new areas, to experiment with techniques and materials that differ from their usual repertoire, we often discover technical solutions that did not exist before and that we can then propose to the brands we work with. Each project becomes an exploratory journey where tradition meets new possibilities, giving life to cutting-edge solutions that enrich our know-how and offer our Maisons new ways to realize their projects."
The exhibition titled ‘une cosmogonie d’océans’ will run until 25 March in Paris on Rue de Richelieu, just few steps from the future headquarters of LVMH Métiers d’Art, which will open their doors before the summer, bringing together under one roof the showrooms of its houses on all five continents. 
 Thomas Mailaender, Amandine Guruceaga, Marion Verboom, Sabrina Vitali, Raphaël Barontini, Eva Nielsen, and Anne-Charlotte Finel, in that order, have been the artists in residence in the LVMH Métiers d’Art programme, directed by Léa Chauvel-Lévy. 
 The identity of the artist selected for the 2025 artistic residency as well as the name of the LVMH Métiers d’Art house that will host them will be announced in the next few months.