Sopheap Pich in Phnom Penh, Cambodia
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Sopheap Pich
Installation at Techo International Airport Project, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Sopheap Pich’s ambitious-scale site specific work, “Birds Fly by Flapping Their Wings”(2025), will be welcoming visitors at Techo International Airport from July 2025, replacing the existing Phnom Penh International Airport as the city’s main aviation hub.
Created by bamboo and metal, Birds Fly by Flapping Their Wings is inspired by the seedpod of a tropical tree called ‘thnong’ in Cambodia. Thnong (Pterocarpus macrocarpus) grows naturally across Southeast Asia, and produces luxury timber used for fine furniture, musical instruments and home architecture, among other purposes. One of the faster-growing rosewoods, it is sought after and cultivated for domestic use and export in the region.
The thnong seed, with its round, thin, and undulating wing, floats freely when it falls from the tree, traveling by wind or water to distant places, representing travel, growth, patience, resilience, and rebirth. For thousands of years, seeds have crossed oceans and continents, leaving traces of beauty and sustenance globally. As they depart their natural habitats, they adapt to new environments, thriving when conditions are ideal, embodying the mysterious power of nature in its most essential form as a container of life itself.
