Artists

Anca Benera, Arnold Estefán

Press release

The pavilion is structured around the understanding of the Black Sea as a plural, networked hydroscape, shaped by the rivers that flow into it, carrying Europe's intertwined colonial and political histories. The exhibition extends connections to the Mediterranean and Adriatic, situating these waters within broader systems of circulation, migration, and exchange historically linking them to Venice and Asian-European trade routes. On the surface, the Black Sea is structured by geopolitical boundaries and regimes of control, while its depths conceal an anoxic layer—akin to museum conservation chambers—that hosts a mysterious world guided by its own rules. Here, the absence of oxygen slows biological degradation almost completely and thus halts the passage of time. Under conditions of pollution or environmental stress, organisms submerged in the sea's anoxic sediments can enter dormant states and remain embedded in the seabed until conditions become favorable again, when they effectively re-enter the present through practices of ecological resurrection. Artist statement: "There is no singular Black Sea, but a field of interdependent forces shaping one another. We explore how to create a setting where the sea can assert its own voice—where it is no longer a passive surface, but an active interlocutor, capable of both responding and refusing." Curators: Corina Oprea, Diana Marincu.