Soaring is part of Ricardo Brey's series Annex (2003—2016), a complimentary body of work to Ricardo Brey’s earlier encyclopedic installation Universe (2002—2006) that originally began as an exploration of flight. Presented for the first time at the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (SMAK) in Ghent, Belgium in 2006, Universe, consists of 1,004 drawings made between 2002 and 2003 displayed in 99 glass vitrines. Consisting of works on paper, sculptures, installations, and videos, the series primarily focuses on birds, but also features flying insects and plants, as well as angels. As the curator and writer Roel Arkestijn observes, “Completely in line with his previous work, flying is for Brey a mythic activity that is bound up with migration and existential questions about freedom and our origins. The Annex forces us to recall Brey’s sculptures on the theme of Icarus.” Comprising elements of drawing, text, and mixed media, these works take flying as a central metaphor to explore key concerns of Brey's work: the meaning of exile, migration, and our diverse trajectories through history and space.