Doom Scroll: Anni Mirabiles February 2020-February 2022 is a 24-foot-long paper scroll I inscribed in February 2022, reflecting on two years of Pandemic life. It is an alphabetical record of 100 entries related to the period, handwritten in Blackletter calligraphy. The entries are a mix of references to specific world events and vocabulary that has entered the general lexicon during this time. The resulting length of the scroll is both a comical and sympathetic visual for how excessively long Covid has raged, how much we’ve been through. The length is marked in 6-foot increments (the familiar social distancing allotment) along the left edge, and the months (1 per foot) from February 2020-February 2022 are marked along the right edge.

As you may have gathered, "Doom Scroll" is a play on "doomscrolling," the typically Twitter-fueled addiction to keeping up with bad news online. "Anni Mirabiles" means "years of wonders," the plural of "annus mirabilis" meaning "year of wonders." Annus Mirabilis: The Year of Wonders 1666 is an epic poem by John Dryden (published in 1667) accounting of England's miserable year when there was a major outbreak of the bubonic plague, the country was at war with Holland, and London burned in the Great Fire. ("Wonders" was a biblical term that didn't necessarily describe good things.) In 2019, I read and was very moved by the novel Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks (2001) set in an English "plague village" in 1665-66 and titled in reference to Dryden's work. I kept thinking of the novel once our own plague hit in 2020.  

Right: Annus Mirabilis: The Year of Wonders 1666 by John Dryden from St. John’s College, University of Cambridge
Left: Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks from Penguin Random House

Doom Scroll was shown in the health/medicine themed exhibition Viral Integration at UC Irvine Susan & Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences from December 2023-December 2024. Installation views below.