One for Sorrow
A hypnotic bird-flight film where traces, mirrors, and omens emerge
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In ancient Rome, augurs were priests who read the sky by watching birds in flight, trusting that movement above could offer prophetic signs. One for Sorrow — named for a traditional English nursery rhyme where the number of magpies in the sky would foretell one’s fortune — interprets this lineage for a contemporary era that is marked by environmental degradation and habitat collapse. Whereas the ancient practice of bird gazing could portend disaster, contemporary sciences look to migration patterns to foretell the increasingly precarious future of our planet. While the interpretive lens has changed, these fields of flight have remained a constant symbolic ground that returns the shape of our future.
One for Sorrow is part of For the Birds: The Birdsong Project. Music by James Lavelle and Steven Weston.
Artist
Xavi Bou
Xavi Bou (Barcelona, 1979) is a photographer and visual artist whose practice explores animal movement through digital chronophotography. Trained in geology and photography, Bou makes visible the choreographies of birds in flight. His interest in nature began with walks through the Llobregat Delta with his grandfather, but witnessing that landscape's industrial devastation shaped an environmental consciousness that now drives his work. His series Ornitografías, developed since 2012, bridges art and science, inviting viewers to rethink their relationship with the natural world through expanded perception and poetic inquiry.