Future Ritual is a practice of gathering, curating and organising. We collaborate with artists to create contemporary expressions of ritual, working to support the emergence of new and more attuned cultures. 

We are based in London (UK).

> about Future Ritual

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News + Upcoming

open call
DISCHARGE
1 March

An open call for performance work that doesn’t fit elsewhere.

> more info + apply


 zack mennell
COMMON HOST
13 - 15 March

A weekend gathering situating ancient folk customs such as mumming in new relation to the post-industrial landscapes of London and Essex . 

> full programme info

On 14 March we’ll host contaminated materials, a workshop exploring the performing our difficult histories.

> workshop info


Martin O’Brien
ON DISCIPLINE
11 - 15 May

This intensive workshop looks at discipline in performance making - how commitment, repetition and training can shape the way we work.

> workshop info + booking


Watch Our Work
 
Some of the performances, projects and events we have worked on are available to watch online
> watch
Getting in Touch
Advice + Consultancy




zack mennell, (para)site: a sea change, 2026. Still from video by Baiba Sprance and Marco Berardi.


zack mennell

COMMON HOST
gathering the parasitic (un)natural

A weekend convened by zack mennell. Working with strange archetypes and inviting in odd beings, the gathering explores practices such as mumming, situating these ancient folk customs in new relation to the post-industrial landscapes of London and Essex.

In COMMON HOST, zack gathers their artistic community around these ideas - the exhibited works and performances reflect a plurality of responses to folklore, environmental degradation, industrial legacy and cultural inheritance. Across the weekend, readings of these different responses mutate in relation to one another, the gathering host to many parasitic practices.

zack will show a new short film, made in collaboration with Baiba Sprance and Marco Berardi. zack will facilitate contaminated materials, a workshop exploring performing our difficult histories.

Fri 13 - Sun 15 March 2026 | tickets

Safehouse 1 & 2, 139 Copeland Rd, London SE15 3SN


Further Information
Press: abstrakt@abstraktpublicity.co.uk
Producing: producing@futureritual.co.uk


Participating Artists
The programme features Julia Bardsley, Selena Chandler, Leon Clowes, Nathalie Coste, Ella Johnston, Fenia Kotsopoulou, Ash McNaughton, Andrea Mindel, Jo Morrison, Pianka Pärna, Baiba Sprance and Marco Berardi, Manuel Vason, Chanel Vegas, & more, to be announced.

> Artist Index: zack mennell

 

programme


COMMON HOST is rooted in the landscapes of the Thames Estuary, especially Thurrock, a terrain marked by centuries of human intervention, industry, trade and decline. Retail parks and housing estates are built over historic sites; chalklands are cut through with ancient deneholes; quarries gape like hungry maws; rubbish rises from landfill burial grounds; animals and plants reclaim former sites of industry as collapsing structures become their unlikely new homes.

Drawing on folklore, archaeology, and contemporary mythmaking, zack mennell imagines a series of mutant, cryptid beings emerging from the sites where human structures have been overtaken by natural processes. In these overlapping layers of prehistoric ritual, imperial ambition, industrial collapse and ecological crisis, zack’s strange beings corrode temporal boundaries. 

Ancient belief systems infect new ruins; mystical residues leak into the infrastructure of late capitalism; industrial sites are revealed as the vacated flesh of Empire; and the Estuary's pylons, quarries and riverbed are haunted by cruising creatures, corrupted gods and half-remembered rituals - signals from past and future worlds, flickering within the present.

COMMON HOST is the final element of a wider project by zack, deepening their exploration of difficult ecological and personal legacies through performance, film and workshop activities. These works explore the resonances between zack’s experiences of madness and institution and the wider climate of political hostility to disabled, neurodivergent, queer and working-class communities.  


schedule


performances, Fri 13 March
zack mennell & Ash McNaughton

Exhibition View from 18.30
Performances from 19.15
Ends 21.00

> tickets


workshop, Sat 14 March
Contaminated Materials: a workshop exploring the performance of difficult histories, facilitated by zack mennell.

10.00 - 16.00

> more info
> tickets

performances, Sat 14 March
Nathalie Coste, Pianka Pärna & more, to be announced.

Exhibition View from 17.30
Performances from 18.15
Ends 21.00

> tickets


marathon, Sun 15 March
An afternoon performance marathon, featuring Leon Clowes,  Fenia Kotsopoulou, zack mennell, Jo Morrison, Chanel Vegas and more, to be announced.

Exhibition View from 13.00
Performances from 14.00
Ends 17.00

> tickets


booking info

The Safehouses are derelict domestic spaces and capacity is limited!  

Access to each performance event is Pay What You Can, with a suggested £3 minimum. Booking is via Outsavvy. If price is a barrier, please write to producing@futureritual.co.uk

accessibility

The Safehouses are old, imperfect domestic spaces. The venue provide the following access information:

While the ground floor, garden and toilet are accessible at Safehouse 1, and at Safehouse 2 the ground floor is accessible, there are steps into the garden. For this reason, the houses are not wheelchair accessible, so we’d recommend the spaces for people with a high level of mobility.

Floorplans can be viewed online. Our gathering takes place on the ground floor of each building only. Please write with any questions around access: producing@futureritual.co.uk

funders & support

(para)site: a sea change is supported with DaDaFest International’s 2025 Live Art Commission and with public funds by Arts Council England. Further support towards the project has been given by Duckie. The project is produced by Future Ritual.





zack mennell, (para)site: a sea change, 2026. Still from video by Baiba Sprance and Marco Berardi.
(para)site: a sea change
a performance to camera made with Baiba Sprance & Marco Berardi

This new work will be premiered during the COMMON HOST weekend.





zack mennell, Bradwell Power Station, 2025. 

DaDaFest Live Art Commission 2025Rage Reactor
As part of the common host project, zack developed a new durational performand and installation, Rage Reactor.

Rage Reactor contemplates care, estrangement, containment, and heritage. The work explores the long half-life of generational trauma, asking how its invisible legacy might be honoured and its cycle broken.

Performance artist zack mennell invites you into a strange world where the material remnants of childhood collide with the visual culture of the civil nuclear industry. In entangling their memories with the environmental and social damage caused by nuclear power, zack creates a unique, poetic reflection on lineage and the generational cycles of trauma.

Combining humorous and odd image making with materials drawn from personal and social archives with intense physical action, zack asks: What does this leave us with? Where does this leave us? Where can we go from here?




Rage Reactor, zack mennell, DaDaFest International, Bluecoat, 2025. Photos by Tom Horton.