Anna Perach: A Leap of Sympathy

15 May-24 Jun 2025

Overview

A Leap of Sympathy is the inaugural solo exhibition by London-based artist Anna Perach (b. 1985, Zaporizhzhia) at the gallery, whose first UK institutional solo exhibition was on view at Gasworks in London last year. The exhibition continues the artist’s investigation into the intersections of the psyche, gender, and identity through the primary medium of textiles—traditionally associated with the feminine and the domestic–challenging the boundaries between fine art and craft.

Perach’s exhibition will unfold across the gallery’s three spaces like the chapters of a storybook, bringing together four new bodies of work and a performance;

Olimpia, the focal point of the exhibition, marks the first time Anna Perach incorporates robotics into her practice. Comprising two large-scale feminine sculptures in rococo-style dress—one animated by a performer, the other operated by a mechanical structure—the work explores how the female body and psyche have historically been cast as emotional, and unruly, thus subjected to systems of societal control. 

Inspired by the two female protagonists of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Gothic fiction The Tales of Hoffmann, Perach reimagines the figures of Olimpia and Clara as divided aspects of the self: one embodying repressed desire and chaos, the other rational order. These tensions come to life through two live performances (15 May | 6pm; 6 June | 5pm), incorporating live sound and choreographed movement. This central piece will be complemented by a series of drawings that depict vignettes of Olimpia’s story.

The Uncanny Valley, comprises twelve heads in the artist's iconic tufted style, mounted on wooden stick structures. Forming a macabre procession that guides viewers through the gallery, this installation is inspired by the severed heads that surround Baba Yaga’s house in the Russian folktale Vasilisa the Beautiful.

Two new glass sculptures situated in the alcoves shift focus to the body’s underlying anatomical structure. Continuing Perach's engagement with this material, these works take the form of two life-sized human ribcages—one featuring flayed, skin-like elements suspended from its frame—intensifying the tension between interior and exterior.

A Leap of Sympathy was developed in conjunction with East Gallery in Norwich, where it will travel for an institutional solo exhibition in September 2025.