Apophatic Art Practice and Research

Connecting with the ineffable in times of flattening

Contributors Project / Editorial Team
  • Merel Visse
  • William Franke
  • Ryan Woodring
  • Béatrice Machet
  • Sarah Travis
  • Enaiê Azambuja
  • Sarah Tarkany
  • Peter Kline
  • Kythe Heller
  • Cailtin Gilson
  • Chelle Stearns

Dr. Alessia Lupo Cecchet

La Montagna Addolorata [The Sorrowful Mountain]

La Montagna Addolorata is a five-channel video installation part of an ongoing interdisciplinary project that investigates historical memory and human violence through an engagement with non-human bodies as a point of inquiry. It relates to my upbringing in the Dolomite Mountains (Northern Italy), their role during World War I, and the marks of violence that they still carry. To humans, this memory seems to be lost. Like a sedimentary rock, human memory results from a layering of experiences, imaginations, and rewritings, as well as a process of erosion, by which memories fade and chip away. This is true for personal and collective memories, allowing for new reinterpretations of the past, erasure, and the perpetuation of injustices. As I move through this research I work to center a nonhierarchical experimentation, where the journeys of researching, making, and failing are as important as the final outcome.

See also: Dolasilla (2023-onoing)

Alessia Lupo Cecchet is an interdisciplinary artist who works at the intersection of studio and media arts. Grounding her work in object-making, video, and history, she explores matters of decay, abjection, empathy, human exceptionalism, and temporality. Through an engagement with the nonhuman body as an access point for inquiry, she interrogates matters of knowledge-making and power. Alessia Lupo grew up in the Dolomite Mountains of Northern Italy and is now based in Los Angeles, CA. Alessia Lupo believes in a meaningful society that pays attention and asks questions.

La Montagna Addolorata (The Sorrowful Mountain), 2025, two-channel video, 60 minutes.
L’ Assemblea (The Assembly), 2025, single-channel video, 45 minutes.
Indossavano abiti splendenti (They Wore Shiny Clothes), 2025, single-channel video, 15 minutes.
A strati, si avvicina (Layered, It Comes),  2025, single-channel video, 30 minutes.
video excerpt: La Montagna Addolorata (The Sorrowful Mountain), 2025, two-channel video, 60 minutes.