— As Long As I See Birds Flying I Know I Am Alive | 2015
Ria Pacquée

AS LONG AS I SEE BIRDS FLYING I KNOW I AM ALIVE reflects Ria Pacquée's keen observation of the public sphere. In this piece, she weaves together a series of recordings captured during her travels through Paris, Kathmandu, Athens, Istanbul, Bruges, New York, Varanasi, and Antwerp.

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Pacquée juxtaposes images of the sacred with those rooted in the everyday, destabilising the anthropological and scientific potential of her material—a disorienting strategy that is a hallmark of her practice. By blending these contrasting elements, she challenges conventional interpretations and invites the viewer to reconsider the boundaries between the sacred and the mundane.

 

Two recurring motifs—drifting clouds of smoke and prowling birds—imbue the film with a dreamlike, almost prophetic quality, as if the natural world itself holds hidden meanings and mysteries. These motifs are not merely aesthetic choices but become symbolic carriers of time, memory, and transformation. This unsettling atmosphere transforms even the most banal, fleeting actions into moments imbued with ritual significance, rendering them as though they were part of an ancient, ritualistic language.

 

What might otherwise appear as ordinary or incidental gains a new, almost mystical weight, suggesting that the everyday is never truly ordinary, but is always on the verge of revealing something larger and more profound.