Interview with Anna Perach
Anna Perach
Baba Yaga, Birth Mark and Shadow, 2018
Tufted yarn
Performance documentation at Play, The Arcade Project
Anna Perach (b. 1985) is a London-based multimedia artist whose work explores issues of ritual, femininity, and identity through performance and display. Perach’s ornate wearable sculptures are used in both choreographed performances and displayed independently. Fabricated by mechanical tufting, a technique commonly used for rugs, her soft sculptures possess a unique haptic quality that enliven the fantastical wild figures and abstracted forms they take. The combination of expressive gestures, patterns, and textures draws on the universal phenomenon of masquerade. Drawing from the rich visual and narrative tradition of Slavic folklore and her upbringing in Soviet- controlled Ukraine and later Israel, Perach’s work is a unique fusion between her native cultures and political ideologies. .
Between her travels, she corresponded with guest juror, Michael H. Dewberry to discuss her influences, challenges, and triumphs in her practice.
Michael: Your oeuvre consists of both plastic arts and performance art. The costumes you make are veritable worn sculptures that are incredibly compelling outside of their performative context. Can you tell me how you began your focus on performance art?
Anna: My background is in installation and sculpture, but I was always drawn to textiles and working with the body. When I started making my recent body of work with tufting, my starting point was creating masks. I enjoyed the idea of combining the heavy and domesticity related material of the carpet with the exterior of the body. This combination led me to begin experimenting with performance. As the masks developed, they started to cover more and more of the body until they became characters that one can inhabit and interact. I'm always curious about the performer's experience in the wearable sculpture and the dynamic that forms with the characters. Sometimes the performers express a feeling of distress and struggle and sometimes a sense of comfort. In both cases, I like the crossover between internal and external as well as the tension between sculptural and stoic, moving and flexible.
Michael: What is your inspiration, and how has your upbringing informed your practice?
Anna: I'm very inspired by Slavic folklore and drawn to the images that inhabited my early childhood in the Soviet Union, Ukraine. I'm interested in how the scenes and ideas we're exposed to as children continue to haunt and form our imagination and understanding of the world as adults. Through my work, I hope to touch on some of those early images. I'm also inspired by old craft techniques and the imperfections of manual labor. Finally, I'm inspired by rituals and the fantasy of influencing the world through action.
Michael: What's the afterlife of the objects that you create for performance pieces? Many of them refer to the body and human/beasts, can they only be experienced outside of the performative context?
Anna: I often exhibit the wearable sculptures as sculptural objects. I usually choose a certain movement or gesture in which I felt the wearable sculpture was most animated and "alive" in the performance and construct the stand for the sculpture to mimic that position. It's important for me that the works have a performative aspect to them even when presented as sculpture.
Michael: You are working in both London and Tel Aviv; do you find that they're received differently in those locales? Furthermore, how does the current geopolitical climate affect the execution, planning, and reception of your work?
Anna: My work deals with ideas of how our nature and culture construct our identity. I aim to create a primal and sensual experience. In this sense, I find my work communicates well across different cultures and political climates. Saying that people who come from a similar background to my own often have an immediate familiarity with the images I create, which creates a feeling of closeness.
Michael: Your technique ranges from augmentation to found objects (i.e., ceramics) to weaving and embroidery. You mention that your work involves "digital embroidery." Can you explain that technique and your technical process and how that has evolved?
Anna: Before working with tufting, I experimented with a wide range of materials to try to convey my ideas. In the past two-three years, I've been working mostly with tufting as I'm fascinated with the possibilities of the technique. I feel slightly addicted to the technical process of making a wearable sculpture and love how each work has its unique challenges. I usually recognize a point during making when I begin to feel anxious and overwhelmed by the work. I learned to understand this feeling as a sign of the work progressing and evolving. I think that when I stop feeling this, it would be a sign to evolve into working with new material. Besides the manual craft of making the wearable sculptures the performative aspect of the practice is something I'm keen to develop as well. I recently started working with a choreographer to enhance the storytelling in the performances through the movements. The narratives are becoming more challenging and complicated as well.
Michael: What are you working on now?
Anna: At the moment I'm planning a solo show for summer 2020. It is still mostly all in my head as pieces and bits of narratives, ideas, and forms. I hope to create a performance that would combine sculpture, wearable sculpture as well as live music and decoration inspired by theatre. But it's all in the early stages!