Born in Ukraine, Anna Perach moved to Israel when she was seven following the fall of the Soviet Union.

Having to move her life at such a young age left her feeling uprooted. “As a child, I moved because my parents moved. I didn’t really have too much of a say in that,” she said. “That kind of experience, of being estranged from the environment I’m in, is very much at the core my identity, and I think very much within the practise as well.” 

She felt out of place, despite the waves of ex-Soviet people to Israel. “I very much tried to, you know, be part of my environment and hide as much as possible my being different. I later learned that it’s kind of impossible, really, because I look different to the typical Israeli. I have a very clear Soviet, sort of Eastern European, appearance,” Perach explained.

These differences lingered after moving to England as an adult – but this time, she was used to the feeling. “Not belonging is a big part of how I identify,” she said, “so in some ways, I’m very much used to the feeling that I need to learn my environment, and I need to understand what the code is and how to behave.” 

Growing up, alienation extended beyond her appearance, reaching as far as her family’s conservative attitudes, or the way they decorated their house.

In most of her art, Perach uses a carpet-making technique called tufting to create her textiles. Carpets, she tells us, were a common feature in Eastern European houses.

“You would have carpets on the floor and the walls as well, because it’s a source of warmth that’s relatively cheap to decorate with. Instead of a big painting, you would just put carpet. It’s one of my very early memories of Ukraine,” she fondly recalled.

“When we moved to Israel, the climate and the whole setup was very different. It doesn’t require that [warmth], it kind of requires, you know, almost the opposite. It’s very hot, so everything is minimal to allow breathing space. My parents just kept doing the same thing, so we had a lot of carpets again.”

Considering external impacts, Perach acknowledges the French influence in Slavic culture. “The ceilings were reminiscent of Rococo design,” she said. “It was all very expressive, way over the top. There is this kind of overwhelming sort of richness to it.” 

She continued, “I don’t think I was necessarily that aware of it at the time, because it’s just kind of how I grew up, I don’t know. But then when I did my BA in art, a friend from the school came over and he was like, whoa, this looks like a set for like a film or something. It did not look like the houses he knew about. That was my first time kind of being awakened to the fact that there is something to [this design]. When I did my MFA, it became more of a conscious exploration.” 

Their home decoration became a way for her parents to hold on to their identity as they moved, creating a space that was safe and familiar to them, and it is this identity that Perach explores in her art. “I started to reshape [these design choices] in my own work, working with those familiar, domestic materials to express other things. That’s how the [tufting] practise started.”

She said: “These elements are in the core of my parents’ identity, in their visual culture. I think that’s how people operate; you try to create sort of a space where your cultural identity can exist, sort of like celebrating it in your own little bubble. 

As an immigrant, you’re always kind of partly in and partly out. The transition for me and my parents from the house to the outside – that tension between what’s inside and outside and who I am outside, how I’m being perceived, how I want to project – those things still are very much a big part of the work.” 

Our conversation about Perach’s life and career naturally trails into asking about her newest installation, where she uses the body to show this feeling. When asked about the title, Perach develops on the idea of the internal versus the external. 

“A Leap of Sympathy is sort of a play on the philosopher Henri Bergson. What he says, as I understand, is that there is no way for us to truly know what is in the other. It’s an unknown. So, for us to connect with someone else, we have to make a leap of sympathy in believing that the other is in a way similar to us, so we can find a common ground,” she explains, before joking that she’s “always worried that a philosopher is going to come [to her exhibit] and be like well that’s not actually what he said.” 

This connection resonates in her exhibition, as she explains the central installation, which features a performer and an automaton. 

“During the installation you can see the mechanism of the automaton running. In the other sculpture, you see the ribs made of fabric, so it’s kind of exposed differently. For me, the idea is that we don’t really know what’s within us or what’s within the other because you don’t see, during the performance, which is which. The backs are closed and [the performer and the mechanism] perform a mirrored sequence of movements, so you start guessing what is what, and by questioning what’s real, you begin questioning your own humanity.” 

We ask Perach about her feelings, now that the project is completed, and she reveals that she is “very proud” of how it turned out, though this feeling of satisfaction is familiar to her. 

“Once a work is done, it’s done. It’s like a child, you need to let it live its own life. It’s done, it’s released. During the making, you know, before the installation is finalised, there’s a lot of moments where I’m like oh, if only I started like a month before, I would have time to perfect this, I would have time to experiment with this, but once it’s standing, I see faults and try to learn from it.”

Smiling, she tells us that her pride comes from the journey, not the destination. “In terms of being proud, there are moments that I am happy with, but it’s not the exhibition as much as the experience. I had a show at Gasworks [in London] in 2024, and I was surrounded by such an amazing team. It was such a beautiful experience that that’s part of the exhibition for me. That pushed me to create something.” 

As she talks about collaboration, Perach mentions working with NUA, where she recently taught BA students. 

“There’s a lot of assumptions I’m making about students from how I remember myself and sort of projecting it onto them, but to me, they seem curious. But, you know ,when you’re in your 20s, you’re still married to your core values. I feel like, for myself and a lot of other people I know, like as time goes by, you have to stretch yourself in various ways. [For the students,] there is a level of honesty. They’re not collectors. They’re not galleries considering their programme. They come to it with really, I think, a pure point of view in some ways. It’s very much about the actual content they see and how it now relates to their lives. I appreciate that. I think it’s important for me to connect on that level.” 

A Leap of Sympathy is on display at NUA’s East Gallery until December 13th, with the next live performance on November 22^nd.

Image Credits: Nicole Combeau & Denisa Ilie