Anca Benera and Arnold Estefán: Black Seas—Scores for the Sonic Eye

Anca Benera & Arnold Estefán present Black Seas—Scores for the Sonic Eye, a large-scale, multilayered audiovisual and sculptural installation, at the Romanian Pavilion for the 61st Venice Biennale. Curated by Corina Oprea and Diana Marincu, the exhibition will be on view from 9 May to 22 November 2026 at the Giardini della Biennale and at the New Gallery of the Romanian Institute of Culture and Humanistic Research (Palazzo Correr) in Cannaregio.

During the professional preview (May 6–8, 2026), the installation is activated through a series of events that bring its sonic and performative dimensions into focus.

Professional preview programme:

Sonic performance by Attila Faravelli
May 6, 2026, 2pm, Romanian Pavilion, Giardini della Biennale

Official opening—Romanian Pavilion
May 7, 2026, 3:30pm, Giardini della Biennale

Official opening—New Gallery of the Romanian Institute of Culture and Humanistic Research
May 8, 2026, 6pm, Palazzo Correr, Cannaregio

The Black Sea is defined by its restless, shifting currents—a constant state of turmoil in which surface and depth never fully converge. This turbulence extends beyond the marine realm, echoing a wider world where ecological, geopolitical, and economic forces collide without ever achieving balance. A sea is never merely water. It emerges from the rivers that feed it, the currents it conjures, and the forces—material, historical, political—that move through its “body.” In the Black Sea, these flows carry sediments, pollutants, and traces of history across the European continent, revealing conflict and territorial tensions that shape its depths and extend toward the Mediterranean and beyond. 

Black Seas—Scores for the Sonic Eye unfolds as a polyphonic installation of moving images, sounds, and sculptural elements. Floating buoys, carried by the unpredictable rhythms of the sea, become musical instruments, while scientific devices—built to measure and endure—join the composition as resonant bodies bearing the imprints of waves, storms, and drifting currents. A geological core from the anoxic depths of the Black Sea anchors the space, pointing to a time before fossil fuel extraction and human inscription. 

How to Mend a Broken Sea?—or a fractured world—emerges as a guiding question, not as a resolution but as a means of confronting these conditions. The sound performance by Diana Miron extends the work into embodied and vocal registers, invoking sensorial archives that span millenia held in water and sediments. 

Underwater images reveal what remains invisible at the surface, as they descend into the depths, reaching the microscopic level, emphasizing the regenerative potential contained within the sea. The work is accompanied by an integrated sound composition developed in collaboration with Simina Oprescu. 

“The sea’s turbulence does not simply inspire the work but actively shapes it, its oscillations translated into sound as if reading a score. The waves carry both turbulence and stillness at once and quietly remind us how far we have drifted from the natural systems we all belong to, and ask how, from within this drift, life remains possible.” — Anca Benera and Arnold Estefan

“In the Romanian Pavilion, the experience unfolds through oceanic depths—through currents, sediments, and microorganisms held in suspension. Scientific traces and sensorial impressions form a polyphonic texture of sound, image, and material presence. The ‘sonic eye’ points toward a search for languages that emerge through relation, listening, and resonance, beyond what is known and seen.” —Corina Oprea & Diana Marincu

The project continues at the Romanian Institute of Culture and Humanistic Research in Cannaregio, where the Black Sea coast is placed in relation to the Atlantic Ocean through industrial infrastructure and extractive afterlives. Across both sites, Black Seas—Scores for the Sonic Eye proposes listening as a practice of care and attention—tuning to uneven, multiscalar forces that bind ecological vulnerability to histories of power, toward languages of solidarity and repair.

The exhibition is accompanied by a printed reader and a series of newly written essays by Françoise Vergès, Svitlana Matviyenko, and Shahram Khosravi, available in full at www.blackseas.ro.

The project is organised by the Ministry of Culture, the Romanian Cultural Institute, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and co-produced by Art Encounters Foundation and FIR Cultural Association, with UniCredit Bank as a strategic partner.

Commissioner: Ioana Ciocan
Strategic Coordinator: Corina Bucea
Executive Producer: Ioana Gonțea (Uzinele Creative)
Exhibition Designers: Daria Oancea & George Marinescu (Atelier Ad Hoc)

Scientific partners: The National Institute for Research and Development on Marine Geology and Geo-Ecology (GeoEcoMar), Institute of Marine Sciences—National Research Council Venice (ISMAR), Emil Racoviță Institute of Speleology (ERIS) & Group for Underwater and Speleological Exploration (GESS)

The accompanying catalogue will be published by Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.) and distributed by Walter König.

Press inquiries: press@blackseas.ro
Communication Coordinator: Raluca Selejan
International Press: Lucinda Riding
International Communication Consultant: Tilla Rudel