PROJECT
penumbra v.2
TYPE
Interactive Art Installation | Artwork
TIME
2024
PLACE
EXHIBITION:
Ott- dic 2024
In Praise of Shadow
Numero51 Gallery
Viale Emilio Caldara, 51
Milano, 20122
TEAM
Artist: Chiara Zucchi
Production/sponsor: DeCastelli
MEDIA
Brushed Brass
SIZE
78,1 x 3,84 x 0,2 cm (x 4 pieces)
OTHER SOURCES
INFO
Penumbra is an interactive artwork that invites the viewer to explore the threshold between light and shadow—both physically and conceptually. Its name, from the Latin paene (“almost”) and umbra (“shadow”), evokes a suspended space where presence and absence intertwine.
A beam of light projected onto brass letters embedded in the wall reveals a hidden sentence: “You cannot run from your shadow, but you can invite it to dance.”
The viewer is invited to move the light source; shadows come alive, distorting, stretching, and compressing the words, adding emotional resonance to the text and transforming the experience into a silent, personal dialogue with the work.
It is a gesture of discovery, in which revelation becomes reflection—on perception, the intimacy of the gaze, points of view, and the encounter between the visible and the invisible: a dance of shadows that speaks about us and invites us to glimpse the beauty of what remains partially concealed, lingering where light transforms and shadow reveals.
Created using laser-cut brass forms and a custom-designed typeface—which extends the identity of the work into typographic and digital space—the artwork entrusts light with a sculptural role.
