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FUTURERITUAL
Institute of Contemporary Arts
Live
18 – 29 May 2022

Light purple sigil with intersection lines mimicking the stretched letters 'FR'

The fog of the here-and-now is ossifying. Contemporary culture is characterised by states of anxiety, alienation and exile. Breaking with these states requires a series of temporal manoeuvres. Ritual is an apt symbolic technology for this work, for ritual is a way of entering time and rendering it habitable through communion.
– Joseph Morgan Schofield

FUTURERITUAL is an artist-led research project considering the use of ritual in contemporary queer and performance cultures. FUTURERITUAL is convened by artist Joseph Morgan Schofield and this iteration features contributions by Benjamin Sebastian, Charlie Ashwell, Daniella Valz Gen, Es Morgan, Soojin Chang, Rubiane Maia and Teo Ala-Ruona.

Identifying performance art as a potent contemporary space for ritual, the project represents a plurality of responses to the question: how can the technology of ritual be deployed in the manifestation of alternative futures?

Running between 18 and 29 May, FUTURERITUAL investigates memory, sex, time, collaboration, ecology, power, alienation, intimacy and belonging. The body remains at the heart of each work, immediate and autonomous. Identity, however, is destabilised and diffused towards the imagination of other ways of being.

The live programme features four newly commissioned performance artworks, a workshop exploring queer kinship and collaboration, and Divinatory Strategies, a three-part sonic essay.


 
Programme:

Shirtless person with lit candle in their mouth, melted wax dripping down their chest
A newly commissioned work exploring prophecy, wildness and mythic time.


Person in an industrial, well-lit room growing green crops

Sunday 29 May, 4pm
A new iteration of Rubiane Maia’s ‘Book Performances’ inspired by Automatic Writing and Psychography.




A three-part sonic essay tracing some of the aesthetic and affective relationships between ritual and performance art.


Past Programme:

Person emerging through ripped material on fire

Wednesday 18 May, 7pm
A newly commissioned live installation unfolding over three hours – a constellation of mirrors, reflecting aspects of the body, time & spaces they inhabit.


Two white people in embrace or dance against an ocean backdrop

Friday 20 May, 11am
A free workshop open to pairs of artists, facilitated by artists Es Morgan and Joseph Morgan Schofield.


Nude person lying curved and surrounded by a crescent of fabric in blue light

Saturday 21 May, 8pm
Soojin Chang: Heavenly Shower of Bank Notes
An experimental ritual oscillating between a fighting ring, feast and a transaction.