Temporary Exhibitions
This exhibition presents a collaboration between artists Anca Benera & Arnold Estefán and Pavel Brăila, who explore the fragile relationship between nature and the impact of human activity on ecosystems.
Climate change, soil pollution, and other factors threaten plant life globally, leading to the gradual collapse of biodiversity. Paleoclimatology relies on “natural archives,” such as pollen records, to reconstruct vanished flora and anticipate future climate dynamics.
Anca Benera & Arnold Estefán collect pollen grains from arid regions on the brink of desertification, preserving a botanical archive of endangered flora. These samples may become essential scientific material in the future, reflecting the artists’ interest in pollen as a paleoclimatic witness and in the vital role of pollinators, such as bees, in maintaining ecosystems. The disappearance of bees would represent an existential threat to life on Earth. Inspired by the fact that the first sounds ever recorded were etched onto beeswax cylinders, the artists build a conceptual bridge between this history and the current ecological crisis.
In the Floral Whispers project, Benera & Estefán collaborate with Pavel Brăila and a community of honeybees (Apis mellifera) to create a musical record made entirely from beeswax. Fragile by its very nature, this disc can be played only a limited number of times—each playback eroding, layer by layer, its material memory, until the sound melts into silence.
We invite you to discover this sensitive exploration of botanical memory and ecosystem fragility!
