Ria Pacquée had her international breakthrough in the 1980s with her performance series featuring characters she created - 'Madame' and 'It'. Infiltrating reality by means of these two personae, she carried out an artistic investigation of the thin dividing line between the fictional and the actual. In more recent work she has tended to concentrate on photographic and video productions, in which the experiences gained as a performance artist still play an important role.

As a spectator (photographs and videos) of public life and as a participant (performances), Pacquée tries to find answers to the most elementary questions of existence. In this respect the street is her arena of study. She sees the street as a living setting, in which she moves discreetly ('street rambling'), recording events from a particular viewpoint with a camera. Her interest in rituals and the metaphysics of religious experience, anonymity, city wandering and collecting of concomitant sounds and images - recreation and appropriation of reality by extracting details from their everyday context are also important themes in her work. Much is left to chance.