BLOOMScrolling

‘BLOOMscrolling' is an installation that reimagines scrolling as an act of resistance. Inspired by doomscrolling, the piece reframes passive digital habits as critical reflection. Centred on the forced journey of Wisteria sinensis, a flower uprooted from China and exoticised in the 18th century, the work unravels histories of colonial botany and ecological exploitation. 

A knitted Jacquard scroll loops continuously, evoking the repetitive gestures of knitting and digital media. Each stitch encodes stories of extraction, while the scroll’s slow and deliberate motion contrasts with the numbing speed of online consumption.

Serving as a storytelling device, the work invites viewers to reclaim their agency within vast, interconnected systems through the intimacy of craft. As a decolonial gesture, ‘BLOOMscrolling’ untangles Wisteria from its threads of appropriation, orientalism and suppressed horticultural knowledge. The repetitive code of the knit unravels questions such as: Which patterns do we perpetuate? What stories do we allow to bloom?