Anca Benera & Arnold Estefan

Bio

Bucharest-based artists Anca Benera and Arnold Estefan work in a range of media spanning installation, video, performance, drawing, and urban interventions. They investigate power relations in social, economic, and political contexts and reflect upon the instability of history and its perception in public and private memory. Collaborating since 2011, they have presented their work at Onomatopee, Eindhoven (2018), Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen (2018), tranzit.ro/Cluj (2018), Kunstahalle Krems (2017), mumok, Vienna (2017), nGbK, Berlin (2017), Futura, Prague (2017), The Jewish Museum, New York (2016), MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles (2016), ZKM Karlsruhe (2016), The School of Kyiv, Kiev (2015), tranzit.sk, Bratislava (2013), OFF-Biennale, Budapest (2014, 2016), Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2014), Trafó, Budapest (2014), 13th Istanbul Biennial (2013), tranzit.ro/ București (2013), tranzit.hu, Budapest (2013), Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2012), Salonul de Proiecte, Bucharest (2012), Camden Arts Centre, London (2011). They are co-founders of the Centre for Visual Introspection in Bucharest.

www.beneraestefan.ro

No Shelter From the Storm

2015
HD video, 5:43 min
Ex. 1/5 + 2AP

The Eastern European landscape of mass deforestation serves as a backdrop for the song whistled by the artists. The tune is that of the famous 1960s anti-war song “Where have all the flowers gone”, which has been recorded and performed in many different languages over the years. The original lyrics were adapted by American folk singer Pete Seeger in 1956 from a Ukrainian Cossack folk tune mentioned in Mikhail Sholokhov’s 1928 novel “And Quiet Flows the Don”, in which war –in the form of both international conflict and civil uprising – provides the epic backdrop to the narrative.

Forests have always offered natural shelter in times of war. Fleeing to the forest was often the only choice. Today, in a political landscape where militarism, global power struggles and war in all its forms, pervade every aspect of life, almost half of the forests that once covered the Earth are gone.

Video link: https://vimeo.com/138401502

 

No Shelter from the Storm - exhibition history:

2015 The School of Kyiv – The Biennale, Kyiv, Ukraine

2015 Walking without Footprints, tranzit.sk, Bratislava, Slovakia

2015 Austeria, BWA Sokol, Nowy Sącz, Poland

2017 Fleeting Territories, Kunstraum Niederoesterreich, Vienna, Austria

2018 Travelling with a Blind Map, Kisterem Gallery, Budapest, Hungary

2018 How Forests Think, Vysočina Regional Gallery, Jihlava, Czech Republik

2018 Ground Control, Centrala Gallery, Birmingham

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