Kelsey Lu Discusses PENUMBRA Performance and So Help Me God Album in Interview

In an interview with Camille Bacon for Elephant, artist Kelsey Lu reflects on her performance PENUMBRA, staged at Palazzo Diedo in Venice in May, and her album So Help Me God, released in June. The title PENUMBRA, a seventeenth-century term for the partial shadow during an eclipse, emerged from Lu's seven-year exploration of shadow work, vulnerability, and the seen versus unseen. Her stage design incorporated rose-tinted frosted window panes inspired by Venetian glass streetlights, and a play pen of local soil from Venice and the Dolomites, referencing Pina Bausch's Rite of Spring. The performance featured musicians Lady Jess, Alicia Hall Moran, Mikael Darmanie, Josh Johnson, and Lu's partner, with costumes by stylist Becky Akinyode and Hillary Taymour of Collina Strada. Lu buried charcoal-covered paper beneath the soil, which was later excavated as drawings documenting the performance; these remain on view at Palazzo Diedo until the end of November. Visual influences include Caravaggio's chiaroscuro, Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, and the writings of Alexis Pauline Gumbs and Pauline Oliveros. Lu describes her cello as an extension of her subconscious and discusses surrender, release, and 'three-dimensional tenderness' in her healing process. The interview touches on themes of trauma, transformation, and the importance of embracing messiness and contradiction in art and life.