Early projects such as All problems can never be solved (2012) for the Cité Modèle in Laeken and the Zoological Institute for Recently Extinct Species (2013) are telling examples of this approach. His career in the performing arts started at fABULEUS, Scheld’Apen, d e t h e a t e r m a k e r and a.pass. During Kunstenfestivaldesarts 2016 he took over the main auditorium at the Brussels City Theatre (KVS) with the performance INFINI 1-15. This project continues to grow with every new iteration. In 2017 he worked on the site-specific creations Atelier III and Projecting [Space[, in collaboration with Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods and dramaturge Jeroen Peeters. Underneath Which Rivers Flow, a collaboration with Open Arts House Globe Aroma, premiered in 2019 during Performatik19 and was later selected for Kunstenfestivaldesarts and Theaterfestival. That same year The Soft Layer premiered at Dream City Festival in Tunis. The text of The Soft Layer is still being performed in courtyards across various European cities, such as Palermo, Brussels and Ghent. In 2023, Jozef Wouters created A Day is a Hundred Years for Toneelhuis, in co-production with Wiener Festwochen and PACT Zollverein.
As a scenographer, Jozef Wouters has worked with, amongst others, Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods, Thomas Bellinck, Benny Claessens, Radouan Mriziga and Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe. His book Moments before the wind, a collection of notes on scenography offering insight into his poetics and artistic practice, was published in September 2020 by Varamo Press (ed. Jeroen Peeters).
Operating from Decoratelier, a continuously evolving project housed in a former factory in Molenbeek, Wouters initiates perfomances, collaborations, festivals, residences and scenographic projects ranging from theater spaces to nightclubs, from a temporary space for the social restaurant Cassonade to the open-air swimming pool FLOW. In doing so, Decoratelier evolves into an architecture studio that creates performances and a theatre company that builds spaces.
In 2019 Decoratelier received the Flemish Culture Prize (Ultima) for Performing Arts. In 2024, FLOW was one of four Belgian projects shortlisted for the European Prize for Contemporary Architecture - Mies van der Rohe Awards.
Since 2017, Jozef Wouters is a part of Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods. He is artist in residence at Kunstencentrum VIERNULVIER in Ghent (BE) in 2023-2027.