Anca Benera and Arnold Estefán have worked as a Romanian collaborative duo since 2012 and are currently based in Vienna. Their research-led practice moves between installation, video, sound, sculpture, drawing and performance. They examine how political narratives, military systems and extractive industries become embedded in landscapes and communities. Earlier projects have addressed national symbols, disputed histories, environmental transformation and the coexistence of rural life with military infrastructure. Rather than treating ecology and geopolitics as separate subjects, the artists trace how memory, technology and material processes shape the same territory.
In 2026, Benera and Estefán represent Romania at the 61st Venice Biennale with Black Seas – Scores for the Sonic Eye, on view from 9 May to 22 November. Presented across the Romanian Pavilion and the Romanian Institute of Culture and Humanistic Research, the installation combines moving image, sound and sculptural instruments. It approaches the Black Sea as a living archive formed by rivers, sediments, ecological stress and histories of migration, empire and conflict. Floating buoys gathered from different seas become sound-producing objects, while underwater imagery and performance translate waves into visual and acoustic structures. The project extends the duo’s continuing investigation of how environmental vulnerability and geopolitical pressure interact across connected bodies of water.