Anca Benera & Arnold Estefán: Rehearsals for Peace, 2023

The second chapter of the WINDOW series presents Anca Benera & Arnold Estefán’s video installation Rehearsals for Peace (2023), which takes as its point of departure the everyday life of a village in Transylvania, where sheep grazing and NATO military exercises unfold within the same landscape. The work explores the impact of militarization on the rural environment and the local communities that inhabit it.

On view: 18 July – 18 August

In the film by the artist duo Anca Benera and Arnold Estefán, a strange choreography unfolds before our eyes amid a beautiful landscape. First, she — who seems as though she might have arrived from the future — moves slowly, touching the mountain’s surface, and we see her hands and gestures in close-up. Later, as the choreography becomes more dynamic and fearless, something eerie emanates from her movements. While only the gazing animals seem to observe her as they eat nonchalantly, her gestures become increasingly alert. As the film continues, both the costume and the movements of the performer change: one can notice military patterns on her richly done cloak as well as tactical hand signs, while the sound and later the use of whip cracking appear. The last scenes confront us even more directly with the military presence in the region. As the tension rises, one can wonder: who is this character, at once embodying a folk tradition from the past and reflecting on contemporary military imagination?

The artist’s starting point was how, in Transylvanian villages, which are home to one of NATO’s key combat training grounds, the pastoral landscape and its inhabitants coexist with armored vehicles. Benera and Estefán have been interested in those places that are made invisible by the military, erased from the maps, and seemingly out of our consciousness, too. But these villages in central Romania are becoming the terrain for rapid transformation, where it is not uncommon to see a tank next to the mountain goats, thus “transforming rural pastures in Romania into firing ranges”— as the artists summarize. 

The main character of the film is inspired by Ursula, who, according to a 16th-century Saxon legend, disguised herself as a man and repelled the invaders with the powerful crack of a whip. The whip-cracking is also a reference to a local tradition called ‘Urzelnlaufen’, practiced in the Saxon villages of Transylvania: their main function was to keep away evil spirits and anyone who would cause harm to the region. In the film, Ursula’s character is rethought from the present-day perspective, recalling a figure who can face and possibly fight military domination. Can she be successful in this endeavor? Can her choreography of resistance function as a wake-up call about how our natural landscapes are being shaped and extracted by political and military interventions? As Benera and Estefán conclude: “This results in a choreography of the unspoken gestures and counter-acts of a disobedient body that silently confronts the present worldwide reality dominated by militarization and earthly extraction.”

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Performer: Simona Dabija
DOP & editor: Tudor Cioroiu
Camera assistant & make-up: Andra Mirea
Color grading: Simona Cristea
Sound composition: Simina Oprescu
Field recordist: Laurenţiu Coţac
Mask and costume designers: Dinu Bodiciu and Olah Gyarfas
CGI: Sergiu Negulici
Comissioned by Neue Berliner Kunstverein, 2023
Co-financed by the n.b.k. Video-Forum and Austrian Federal Ministry for Art and Culture

Anca Benera & Arnold Estefán: Rehearsals for Peace, 2023. Two-channel video installation (the video presented here is one channel of the installation), color, stereo sound, 16:26 min.

Installation materials: hay, recycled wooden boards, tree branches, textiles, fur, military tripod, whip, and other found materials.