PENUMBRA

Berggruen Arts & Culture and Monteverde Productions present PENUMBRA, an exhibition by Kelsey Lu and Yumna Al-Arashi opening July 8 at Palazzo Diedo. The work continues the live performance staged at the palazzo on May 7, 2026, transforming its traces — soil, sound, and charcoal — into a lasting installation developed in dialogue with photographer Al-Arashi.

PENUMBRA was conceived across three realms: Earth: black sand, gravity, imprint, friction, decay, ancestry Dream: improvisation, fractured memory, subconscious movement, lucidity Heaven/Collapse: music as devotional prayer, rupture, contemplation, surrender

Imagery from Lu's collaboration with Al-Arashi shaped the visual language of the May 7 performance, exploring the sacredness of land, the violence of erasure, and the tenderness of survival. Visiting Venice, Al-Arashi found striking parallels between the city's frescoed buildings and Lu's own creative evolution through her album So Help Me God — a shared sense of layered, evolving storytelling.

The new installation draws on this connection: the heavens trickle down the walls of Palazzo Diedo, the fresco acting as both curtain and ceiling, concealment and decoration. The charcoal drawings on view are made from a mixture of charcoal & soil collected from the surrounding farmlands and foothills of the Dolomites, crushed and spread across the floor during the May performance, echoing Venice's own hidden strata — earth, water, marble, light — and Lu's earlier experiments making clay from soil gathered in North Carolina.

Across the installation, the body appears as vessel, archive, and site of power, moving through the witness, the devotee, the warrior, the lover, the ghost. PENUMBRA holds these states together, where identity remains fluid and wholeness is only ever hinted at.

The exhibition will be begin with an opening cocktail reception on July 8, 18:00–20:00 at Palazzo Diedo that includes a presentation of Savanah Leaf's new film So Help Me God, created in conjunction with Lu's new album of the same name. The film was written & directed by Savanah Leaf, Ryan Marie Helfant as Director of Photography, Creative Directed by Kelsey Lu, and Produced by Jill Ferraro.

Photo by Yumna Al-Arashi.