bio — Joseph Morgan Schofield

Joseph Morgan Schofield (b. 1993, Rochdale, UK) uses performance, moving image, writing and curation to create future ritual. Joseph's queer ritual actions foreground desire, grief and wildness in the context of queer and ecological futurity; their acts of gathering and communion articulating a deep yearning - for both that which is lost, and that which is yet to arrive.

This ritual/performance/magic is relational, emerging through encounters between their sweating, wanting, sensate non-binary body and a host of agents - human and otherwise, including memory, geology, weather and myth.

Joseph has engaged with the South Pennine Moors as muse and collaborator for a number of years, and they also work responsively to other sites and contexts on different time scales. Through practices of channeling, duration, exhaustion and divination, Joseph’s works hold space for acts of mourning, yearning, processing, dreaming and communing.

Joseph’s recent performance work, with bare feet touching the sky I yearn, explores futurity, prophecy, wilding and mythic time. Commissioned by the ICA (London), the work premiered during FUTURERITUAL, a season of performances and exchanges convened at the ICA by Joseph.

Joseph’s recent work is these teeming forms, a thirty minute film work made on the South Pennines. Commissioned by ]performance s p a c e[ and presented at the ICA (London), ]ps[ and VSSL studio, these teeming forms continues Joseph’s exploration of queer wilding, situating the land/body as a living archive, porous and fragile.

Acts of gathering and facilitation are central to Joseph’s practice, and their artistic work also involves curating, producing, mentoring and teaching. They organise FUTURERITUAL, a performance and research project considering ritual and queer futurity, and co-produce move close, a club night emerging from the intersection of electronic music, performance art and dance, with Es Morgan and Sara Sassanelli. In 2021, Joseph co-facilitated The Sunday Skool for Misfits, Exprimenters and Dissenters, an online performance art course with Martin O’Brien and Shabnam Shabazi, and FUTURERITUAL : MYTHIC TIME, a residential workshop with VestAndPage.

With Benjamin Sebastian, Joseph is the co-founder and co-director of VSSL studio and the co-director of ]performance s p a c e[. They are a member of Chisenhale Dance Space and of the Anam Cara collective (International), and they are a frequent collaborator of Venice International Performance Art Week (Italy). Joseph manages Artist Development for the Live Art Development Agency.

Joseph has performed and exhibited throughout the UK – including at Chisenhale Studios, Tempting Failure, Arnolfini, Camden People’s Theatre and ]performance s p a c e[ - and Europe - including Venice International Performance Art Week.

CV // josephmorganschofield@gmail.com // @jmschofield