Romania 2026

Title: Black Seas – Scores for the Sonic Eye
Commissioner: Ioana Ciocan
Curators: Corina Oprea, Diana Marincu
Exhibitors: Anca Benera & Arnold Estefán

The installation reconceives the Black Sea as a site of acoustic memory and geo-ecological fracture, linking it to a wider oceanic continuum shaped by imperial expansion and extractive histories.

The project employs the “sonic eye” to prioritise listening over vision. Oceanographic data, including wave turbulence and undercurrents, are translated into spatialised vibrations through spectral composition, field recordings, sculptural instruments and moving images. The exhibition focuses on the sea’s vast anoxic layer, where the absence of oxygen prevents biological decay, using this suspended zone as a model for rethinking temporality and survival.

The installation is presented across two locations: the Romanian Pavilion in the Giardini and the Romanian Institute for Humanistic Research (Palazzo Correr). It transforms marine science and hydropolitical histories into an acoustic environment where the seabed acts as a latent force.