-

Berggruen Arts & Culture and Monteverde Productions present PENUMBRA, an exhibition by Kelsey Lu 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 Yumna 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 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 soil 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.

Photo by Yumna Al-Arashi.

-

BIO

Yumna Al-Arashi is an artist, filmmaker, and writer whose work straddles the intersection of history, identity, and power. Through striking visual compositions, her work reclaims lost narratives, challenges colonial legacies, and redefines the representation of women, the Arab world, and the environment with an unflinching, poetic gaze. Her imagery—steeped in myth, memory, and resistance—invokes a sense of timelessness, drawing from centuries-old traditions while speaking urgently to contemporary struggles. Through her lens, beauty becomes an act of defiance, and storytelling a form of reclamation.

Her debut institutional solo show opened in February 2026 at the renowned Huis Marseille Museum for Photography in Amsterdam. Her work has been exhibited at MoMA PS1, the International Center for Photography NYC, Helmhaus Zürich, Institut du Monde Arab Paris, and more. Her films and photographs have also been featured in global platforms like National Geographic, The New York Times, and The Guardian. Beyond the art world, she is a sought-after speaker and educator, using her platform to reshape conversations around representation, visual ethics, and the power of storytelling as a tool for change.

Her award-winning short film The 99 Names of God (2018) premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and her images of the Bolivian Cholitas graced the cover of Vogue Mexico & Latin America’s 20th Anniversary Issue, in 2020. Her film rage was nominated for the CIRCA Prize in 2024. Her first monograph, Aisha, was published by Edition Patrick Frey in Autumn 2024 and awarded The Most Beautiful Swiss Books Prize the same year.

Kelsey Lu is a classically trained cellist and polymuse from Charlotte, North Carolina. Her artistic practice flows comfortably at the intersection of visual art, performance, healing activism, and music. In addition to her solo work, she finds collaboration to be fundamental in the expansion of her practice, which has brought her to collaborations with musicians including Yves Tumor, Skrillex, and Solange; fine artists Kahlil Joseph and Wu Tsang; and brands such as Toyota, Swarovski, Jil Sander, and Gucci.