Anca Benera & Arnold Estefán

Anca Benera, born 1977, and Arnold Estefan, born 1978, are collaborators based in Bucharest/Romania who have worked together since 2011.

Before working as a duo, they were part of the Centre for Visual Introspection collective in Bucharest, where they curated a series of workshops, public art projects and publications.

Benera and Estefan work in installation, video and performance using research-based methods to reveal the invisible patterns behind certain historical, social and geopolitical narratives. Their earlier works addressed, among other things, the notion of land and the political and cultural construct of territory. Recent projects investigate the phenomenon of made-ground (geo-architecture) and how the making and marking of landscape (as a form of spatial modification) goes hand in hand with heightened state violence and the overexploitation of resources.

Their projects have been included in exhibitions and biennials including Potential Worlds, Migros Museum, Zurich/Switzerland (2020–2021); Natural Histories. Traces of the Political, mumok (museum moderner kunst stiftung ludwig wien), Vienna/Austria (2017–2018); Sounds and Sites, The Jewish Museum, New York/USA (2016); Global Control and Censorship, ZKM, Karlsruhe/Germany (2016); Der Brancusi Effekt, Kunsthalle Wien (2015); Mum, am I barbarian? 13th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul/Turkey (2013); We were so few and so many of us are left, Tranzit Bucharest (solo show, 2013) and Intense Proximity, La Triennale, Palais de Tokyo, Paris/France (2012).

Former fellowships include those at the MAK Centre for Art and Architecture Los Angeles, LA/USA (2015–2016) and the Camden Arts Centre London, London/UK (2011).

Anca Benera & Arnold Estefan are fellows of Akademie Schloss Solitude in the Eastern European Exchange program with Goethe Institut Bucharest in Romania. Since 2020, Akademie Schloss Solitude has been cooperating with Goethe Institut Bucharest as main partner as well as the curatorial team Radu Lesevschi (ARC Bucharest), Raluca Voinea and Iuliana Dumitru (tranzit.ro bucurești), and Stefan Ghenciulescu (»Ion Mincu« University of Architecture and Urban Planning).