Night Bloom
Night Bloom is an immersive audio-visual artwork that highlights the resilience of the global deaf community through the metaphor of biodiversity. While storms and wilting flowers reflect the systematic discrimination and erasure faced by deaf people around the world, abundant landscapes filled with birds and insects offer a symbol of hope and future growth for all.
A looped film features three dancers, whose movements incorporate signs drawn from Visual Vernacular and traditional Chinese (CSL) sign languages. Signs drawn from nature are commonplace across international sign languages. The roots shooting from the hands of dancers represent the mycorrhizal networks through which plants and fungi communicate across species.
This work shares the power of embodied forms of communication, across difference, and advocates for an inclusive climate transition.
BSL interpretation for this artwork is available via this link
Spectroscope is an international collective of deaf and disabled artists founded by Cathy Mager in 2022. Their multidisciplinary installations explore other worlds, lost histories and hidden communities. Spectroscope highlights stories of people that are not ‘chosen’, and of displaced and oppressed communities, breaking taboos and presenting visions of a different future through its immersive dreamscapes. They are pioneers of sign language projection mapping, including large-scale building projections for Arnolfini, Bristol and Unfurl for Duolun Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai that reached audiences of over 180,000 people.
Credits: Artistic Direction: Cathy Mager, Choreography and performance: Alice Hu, An Di, Xianhe Wang, Video Design Artwork and Editing: Ben Glover, Filming: Bob Wang, Sam Zheng, Jack Chi, Illustration: Lifeng He, Music: Ngaio Anyia, mixing by James Ongley, Production: Cat Roberts, Sign Language Interpreters: Blade Tang, Freya McLuckie, Jayme Lawman
Commissioned by Unlimited with funding from the British Council