Left to Be Desired Episode 8: Anca Benera and Arnold Estefan

Episode 8 of the SAVA podcast Left to be Desired features a conversation with artists Anca Benera and Arnold Estefan. 

 Left to Be Desired is available to listen to on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music/Audible and Audacy. You can also access it via the podcast website:  
https://lefttobedesired.libsyn.com/site  

Left to Be Desired explores the distinctiveness of the socialist path through the Anthropocene by bringing together artistic and scholarly insights into the ecologies of global socialism. Maja & Reuben Fowkes invite artists and researchers to talk about their practice and exchange ideas at the intersection of ecology, climate change, art and the Socialist Anthropocene.

Anca Benera and Arnold Estefan: Along the River Timiș 

Recorded on the banks of the river Timiș in Romania, episode 8 of Left to Be Desired is a conversation with SAVA Creative Fellows Anca Benera and Arnold Estefan, who reflect on their solo exhibition Unworlding at Art Encounters Foundation in Timișoara (on view till 1 March 2025) and also the unexpected story of the drought stone Who Controls the Weather, which they previously submerged in the river for an uncertain future. The discussion with Maja and Reuben Fowkes flows on to touch on some of the works in their survey exhibition, from the installation Debrisphere, a starting point for their artistic explorations of the Anthropocene, to Missing Mountain, a project developed through their creative fellowship with the SAVA project.   

About the Speakers  

Anca Benera and Arnold Estefan are collaborators who have worked together since 2011, currently based in Vienna and Bucharest. Their work in installation, video and performance uses research-based methodologies to reveal the invisible patterns that lie behind certain historical, social, or geopolitical narratives. Their recent work investigates the phenomenon of man-made landscapes around the world, where 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. They are the recipients of The Birgit Jürgenssen Prize 2022, awarded by The Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture and the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and are Creative Fellows at UCL’s Postsocialist Art Centre in London.