Night Bloom

Immerse yourself in a mystical garden where dance, sign language and nature blossom and grow together

Night Bloom is a 360 degree immersive audio-visual artwork by Spectroscope 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.

Night Bloom 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.

“Bold, beautiful, and boundary breaking” British Council

“…the dancers’ hands tell a story of exclusion, resilience, and renewal — all without a single spoken word" Six Tone

“Energy moves from the natural world, up through the dancers’ bodies and out along their arms. Hands flutter silently, like the butterflies and the birds which fill the projected vision” Disability Arts Online.

Night Bloom Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXstnZ0Lql4

BSL introduction for this artwork is available via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeslSbA79Dg&t=24s

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 projections for Arnolfini, Bristol, The Cunard Liverpool, Science Gallery, Wellcome Collection and Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art.

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

Originally commissioned by Unlimited with funding from the British Council.

With support from the Real Ideas Organisation.

Running time: 20 minutes