JMS is a curator, artist and creative producer. At the heart of these entangled practices is an understanding of performance art as a potent, contemporary modality of ritual. He / they draws on queer, ecological and esoteric thought to engage with the lost, the unseen, the forgotten. He understands his performances and films as thin places, as ceremony, as a way of practicing sensitivity, of reorienting attention and touching the more raw edges of experience.
As a curator, they activate spaces for collective encounter through Future Ritual, cultivating intergenerational exchange and artist-led research, experimentation and creation. Future Ritual is a long term curatorial, research and organising practice initiated in 2017.
Since 2024, Joseph has worked as Curator, Public Practice at Tate. Previous roles have included those at Live Art Development Agency, The Place and ]performance s p a c e[. JMS is also co-founder and co-director of VSSL studio.
Across all this work, Joseph remains committed to the live and embodied practices which welcome complexity, senstivity, tension and difficulty, and which call towards the more raw edges of experience.
Joseph lives in London (UK) but most often works in dialogue with the wet, windy Pennine moors and Cumbrian fells of the English North West.
joseph@futureritual.co.uk
Instagram // Mailing List
Photos by zack mennell.
projects (selected)
A year-long programme cycle curated and produced by Future Ritual, exploring performance as a mode of gathering and communion amidst the fragmentation of contemporary life.
Participating artists included Marilyn Arsem, Anne Bean, gustaf broms, emilyn claid, Alastair MacLennan, Liz Rosenfeld and SERAFINE1369.
Produced by Future Ritual in partnership with Live Art Development Agency, Queen Mary University of London, Stanley Arts, Venice International Performance Art Week and VSSL studio.
Funded by Arts Council England and Mayor of London.
A season of events reflecting on the cultural memory of the 1980s and the impact of artistic activism and community building.
Participating artists included Khalid Abdalla, Ron Athey, Poulomi Desai, Rosy Martin and Ajamu X.
Curated in response to Tate’s exhibition programme - The 80s: Photographing Britain, Turner Prize 2024, Leigh Bowery! and ARTIST ROOMS: Helen Chadwick.
A collective performance exploring ideas of death, remembrance, transformation, rebirth and the transferrance of energy between bodies and between the body and the environment.
Co-created by JMS, Ash McNaughton and Marcel Sparmann.
Produced by Future Ritual. Commissioned by IKLECTIK. Presented by IKLECTIK (2023), Chapter Arts Centre and Venice International Performance Art Week (2024).
A season of performances investigating memory, sex, time, collaboration, ecology, power, alienation, intimacy and belonging.
Participating artists included Soojin Chang, JMS, Rubiane Maia and Benjamin Sebastian.
Produced by Future Ritual. Commissioned and presented by ICA (London).
Funded by Arts Council England.
Prophetic fictions compost with dried flowers, soil and natural pigments, calling to a queer futurity which is wilder and more raw than the anxious, ossifying present.
Produced by Future Ritual. Commissioned and presented by ICA (London). Funded by Arts Council England.
Solo performance art work; duration: c. 90 mins
Shot in a breath between lockdowns in 2021, these teeming forms is a sensate and mythic film, imagining a process of wilding - of entering the land and being opened by it. Memory and desire, history and loss, future and fantasy become porous, contributing to a textural and sensate meditation on living.
Commissioned by ]performance s p a c e[. Presented by ]ps[, ICA (London), VSSL studio, Chisenhale Studioes (2021) and Venice International Performance Art Week (2023). Funded by Arts Council England.
Single-channel video work; duration: 28.33
A programme of performance art taking place at two historic places of worship in Folkestone and Romney Marsh.
Participating artists included Sandra Johnston, Lynn Lu, James Jordan Johnson, Kelvin Atmadibrata, Monstera Deliciosa and Léann Herlihy.
Curated by Benjamin Sebastian and Joseph Morgan Schofield, and produced by ]performance s p a c e[. TIDING was supported by Ash McNaughton and Marcin Gawin. Presented at two historic sites of worship in Romney Marsh and Folkestone
The project was funded by ]performance s p a c e [, Kent County Council, Creative Folkestone and Roger De Haan Charitable Trust, and Kent Wildlife Trust.
Gathering in a Time of Plague
Established in response to the conditions of pandemic, the project foregrounded the power and immediacy of live performance.
Participating artists: Kelvin Atmadibrata and Adriana Disman, Chinasa Vivian Ezugha, Jasper Llewellyn, EM Parry, Niya B, Shaun Caton, Kimvi and Jade Blackstock.
Curated by Benjamin Sebastian and Joseph Morgan Schofield and produced by VSSL studio. Funded by Arts Council England.
practices: curation / film / performance / writing
contexts: Future Ritual / Tate / VSSL studio / ]ps[
years: 2016 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20 / 21 / 22 / 23 / 24 / 25 /