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devotion : seduction, Joseph Morgan Schofield, 2020. Photo by Fenia Kotsopoulou
I understand my works as acts of mythopoesis, as process-driven embodiments of different ways of being in other possible worlds. I think of ritual & performance as technologies of divination, a way to vision, prophecy or fiction [other] [queer] futurities.
with bare feet touching the sky I yearn is a newly commissioned work by performance artist Joseph Morgan Schofield. Articulating their work as ‘queer ritual action’, Morgan Schofield understands ritual as a technology which facilitates us to experience time differently and can produce sensations of (be)longing.
Underpinned by a deep sense of longing that is about both loss and desire, with bare feet touching the sky I yearn calls to a trans* futurity which is wilder and more raw than the anxious present. This futurity is multiplicitous – shrouded, erotic, and non-linear. It is bound up with more-than-human ecologies and, like life itself, it is chaotic and non-binary.
The work presents prophetic fictions composting with dried flowers, soil and natural pigments. A wormhole is opened in the earth and the boundaries between human subjectivity and worlds beyond are made porous. They are sweaty, bloody gestural embodiments of yearning, facilitating a symbolic, DIY diffusion of selfhood. The work offers no clear path but rather an invitation – to step into a more mythic time, a space for dreaming, grieving, desiring and communing.
Joseph Morgan Schofield (they/them, b. 1993, Rochdale, UK) uses performance, moving image, writing and curation to create ‘queer ritual action’ which explores desire, grief, ecology and the wilding of queer and trans* futurity. Their practice is relational, emerging through encounters between the sweating, wanting, sensate non-binary body and a host of human/other-than agents.
Gathering and facilitation are central to Joseph’s practice, and their artistic work also involves curating, producing, mentoring and teaching. Joseph has convened FUTURERITUAL since 2017. As a facilitator, Joseph has co-led a number of expansive workshop projects, including FUTURERITUAL: MYTHIC TIME with VestAndPage, and The Sunday Skool for Misfits, Experimenters and Dissenters (VSSL studio). 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[. josephmorganschofield.com / futureritual.co.uk
no. 236848.