We are based in London (UK).
about Future Ritual
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ALMANAC
Next: Sunday 28 Sept
Almanac is a new regular performance platform taking place monthly in London.
Event info + open call for future events
FIELD WORK
Deadline: Friday 31 Oct
Field Work is an intensive residential workshop led by Marilyn Arsem & Anne Bean in Cumbria, UK.
Workshop info + open call
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CEREMONY
A year-long programme cycle exploring performance in times of fragmentation.
about Ceremony
Getting in Touch
Photo by zack mennell.
Marilyn Arsem & Anne Bean
Field Work
an intensive residential workshop in the Eden Valley, Cumbria 28.07 - 03.08.2026
Submit an Expression of Interest (deadline 31.10.2025)
Contact: producing@futureritual.co.uk
The Field Work residential workshop explores collaboration in and with landscape. Spending a week immersed in the beautiful and evocative Eden Valley, we will consider the role of site in performance art, exploring multiple approaches for being with place and working with the land as an active collaborator.
Co-led by Marilyn Arsem and Anne Bean, this unique collaborative workshop has emerged from the artists’ shared interest in site-responsive performance work. While they approach performance art from different geographies and trajectories, their distinct practices share a spirit of openess that informs the way they encounter places and histories.
This openess is about listening and making space for the place to speak, about treating it as an active collaborator and approaching it ethically. It is about seeing what emerges from the meeting of body, time, memory, weather and land, rather than imposing a work on (or in spite of) the landscape. In this way the landscape is not decorative, supportive or metaphorical, but ‘emerges as a full character’ (Glissant).
Field Work takes place in the Eden Valley, a beautiful, rural place situated between England’s North Pennines and Cumbrian fells. Aligned with the seasonal festivals of Lughnasadh and Lammas, the Field Work residential workshop marks a time of harvest and transition — an occasion to meet the landscape (and each other) as teacher, interlocutor, and collaborator.
This is a residential workshop, meaning we will live together for the week. We will be based on a four acre private campsite amid biodiverse land. From this base we will walk to and spend time with evocative sites in the area, including ancient monuments, forests, fields, rivers and former industrial sites, now overgrown. Wherever we are, the landscape will guide and shape our work.
The programme will balance collective and solo practice. Our explorations will involve small group sessions, conversational exchange, individual and collaborative tasks, devising performance actions, evening sharings, practices of listening, and periods of silence.
We invite you to arrive without preconceived ideas about how you will relate to these places, and without firm notions of how you will be in this landscape. Rather, we ask that you bring openness, questions, and a willingness to somehow dislodge fixed notions as we encounter both outer and inner terrains.
The programme will balance collective and solo practice. Our explorations will involve small group sessions, conversational exchange, individual and collaborative tasks, devising performance actions, evening sharings, practices of listening, and periods of silence.
We invite you to arrive without preconceived ideas about how you will relate to these places, and without firm notions of how you will be in this landscape. Rather, we ask that you bring openness, questions, and a willingness to somehow dislodge fixed notions as we encounter both outer and inner terrains.
Overview of our base for Field Work. Image courtesy of Into The Woods Cumbria.
One of the woodland trails leading from the campsite. Image courtesy of Into The Woods Cumbria.
Long Meg and her Daughters - "Another view of this standing stone." Photo by Humphrey Bolton, 2006.
Facilitation
Marilyn Arsem, Embedded, performance for the camera as part of the If to Drift residency South Bristol, Maine, August 18, 2009. Photos by Bob Raymond.
Performance artist Marilyn Arsem has been creating and performing live events for more than forty years and has presented her work in thirty countries around the globe. Many of her works are durational in nature, minimal in actions and materials, and have been created in response to specific sites, engaging with the immediate landscape and materiality of the location, its history, use or politics.
Sites have included a former Cold War missile base in the United States, a 15th century Turkish bath in North Macedonia, an aluminum factory in Argentina, the grounds of an abandoned tuberculosis sanatorium in Poland, the site of the Spanish landing in the Philippines, and an abandoned Russian mining outpost in the Arctic Circle. She incorporates a broad range of media and often engages all the senses.
In co-facilitating this workshop, I hope to design a framework that deepens participants' engagement with the environment around them and with their own practice. Practically speaking, that means creating daily prompts that trigger our imaginations, challenge our assumptions and habits, and inspire a diversity of embodied responses to the landscape. I look forward to the conversations about the work that we create together in this week.
Artist Index: Marilyn Arsem
Anne Bean, Southwark Park Galleries 40th Birthday Performance, 2024. Southwark Park Galleries, Dilston Gallery. Photo by Mischa Haller.
Collaboration and process are embedded in Anne Bean’s work. Her engagement is as the ‘space-between’, receiver, receptor, and conjuror, strategies to plug into time and timelessness. This enables her work to embody changing issues and manifestations, as well as deeply rooted concerns. She is currently working with Punk Bodies in Denmark, the relationship of drawing to early video work Lines of Resolution in Houston, Texas, the publication of her collaborative poetry Land River Land with Kertezc Press and collaborations with Zambian artists for a festival of ritual ancienTomorrow, in Zambia.
The roots of the word 'facilitation' comes from 'making things easy.' It is difficult to make things easy.
However, deep in us we have the ease, the affinity and awareness, to connect with ourselves, with others, with where we are. There are many ways of opening ourselves to this, some as simple as sharing food, as in ancient harvest festivals.
I would like these days together to unfold between us, with myself just as a nudger and Marilyn's process adding other ingredients to this unfolding.
Artist Index: Anne Bean
Our team will be available onsite throughout the workshop week, working to support the deepest possible experience. Field Work represents a unique opportunity to bring the distinct practices of Anne and Marilyn, two of our dear collaborators, into relation in a special place. Joined by the Field Work participants, we expect this will be a powerful convergence of artistic forces.
About Future Ritual
| Field drawing of Little Meg carved rock, a clockwise spiral linked to a set of concentric circles. |
Structure
Field Work takes place from Tuesday 28 July to Monday 3 August 2026 in the Eden Valley, Cumbria.
The nearest train station is Penrith. From Penrith, it is a 20 minute drive, or 40 minute bus (followed by 20 minute walk). For drivers, there is parking onsite. Train timetables will be available in Spring 2026.
Please arrive to the campsite ready to begin at 4pm on Tuesday 28 July. For those taking the train, you should plan to arrive to Penrith by 2pm. We will finish around midday on Monday 3 August.
Gate Opener
Sometime in early Summer we will host an online Gate Opener, giving participants a chance to meet each other and check in with our team on artistic and logistical information.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner will be provided.
We will need some participants to help with preparation each day, though this will be scheduled so that it does not interrupt the workshop plans.
Teas, coffees and some soft drinks will also be included.
Additional drink options (including alcohol) will be available, to be paid onsite.
Participants should bring their own snacks.
In the evening, we will light fires and sit under Cumbria’s dark skies.
Accommodation is in tents. Our ambition is to tune in and immerse ourselves in this calm and beautiful place.
Ideally participants will provide their own tents and sleeping materials, though we will explore hiring these (at additional cost).
There are showers with (usually) hot water and compost toilets on site.
There is no WiFi onsite.
We will be the only people onsite, so there is plenty of space to go for quiet periods.
Lacy’s Caves on the river Eden. Photo credit unknown.
Part of the kitchen area at our basecamp. Image courtesy of Into The Woods Cumbria.
Participation
Field Work is primarily geared towards those who practice performance art, though we welcome those who practice other disciplines (visual artists, dancers, musicians etc.) and those with unruly, undefined or emergent practices. We invite participants with any level of professional experience.
The most important quality is an openess towards discovery, with yourself, with others and with the landscape.
If you would like to speak through any aspect of the workshop, you are welcome to contact Future Ritual by email: producing@futureritual.co.uk.
As we will be camping, you should be someone who welcomes a back to basics approach and spending time outdoors!
Accessibility
There are some limitations with Field Work, as the residency involves camping in tents and there are no accessible toilets or showers at the campsite.
We will be spending most of our time immersed in the surrounding landscape. Some sites are accessible by road or paved path, but others are only accessible via informal footpaths. There will be no need to rush to any of the sites and the routes would be graded ‘easy’ or ‘moderate’, though may still contain stiles. You should expect to be traversing between 2 and 5 miles each day.
We welcome all those who need more information to make a decision about joining the process or who would like to explore adaptations together to contact us by email (producing@futureritual.co.uk) and we will figure it out together.
Concession: £650
Standard: £750
Supporter: £850
The ticket includes: facilitation by Marilyn Arsem and Anne Bean; breakfast, lunch and dinner; tea, coffee and soft drinks; campsite pitch; and documentation.
The ticket does not include: tent and sleeping gear; travel to and from the residency; snacks; alcoholic drinks.
Payment Schedule
£250 deposit to secure your place, due Fri 28 Nov
£250, due Fri 27 March
Balance, due Fri 29th May
Expressions of Interest
Our callout is open until 4pm Friday 31 October 2025. We will be reviewing applications on a rolling basis, so please don’t leave it too late.
Please submit your Expression of Interest via this google form.
The form asks for contact, access and dietary information, along with the following:
- Tell us about your relationship with a place that is important to you, or describe an encounter with a place that left a lasting impression.
- Tell us about your practice, in your own terms.
- Tell us why you want to take part in Field Work.
You can answer these questions in text, or in a video or audio response. Share a link in one of the text fields, and please make sure sharing settings are correct so we can access them!
We look forward to seeing you in the field!