Menu

  • Home
  • Stories
  • Gallery
  • Crafts magazine
  • What's on
  • Directory
    • Overview
    • Supporting craft businesses
    • Join the directory
    • Opportunities
    • Craft business resources
    • Craft business booster sessions
    • Crafting Business programme for makers
    • Overview
    • Make First
    • Education
    • Families
    • Participation
    • Craft learning resources
    • Craft careers
    • Craft School: Yinka’s Challenge
    • Young Craft Citizens
    • Overview
    • About the collections
    • How to hire and borrow
    • Exhibitions
    • Curatorial fellowship
  • Collect art fair
    • Overview
    • Our work
    • Our team
    • Governance
    • History
    • Research and policy
    • Diversity and inclusion
    • Current Vacancies
    • Contact us
    • Craft UK
    • Press
    • Overview
    • Appeals and projects
    • Patrons
    • A gift in your will
    • Corporate partnerships

Quick Links

  • Subscribe
  • Opportunities
  • Crafts Council at 50
Home
Login
Crafts CouncilStories

How Anna Perach uses an ancient carpet-making technique to tell tales


ByCrafts magazine

9 May 2022

The textile artist crafting storytelling sculptures


Crafts magazine

9 May 2022

  • Textiles

  • Birth Mark by Anna Perach, 2018, tufted yarn and metal wire. Photo: courtesy of Sarabande Foundation

As the new art fair Eye of the Collector lands in London for its second outing, we spoke to textile artist Anna Perach – who is showing a mythology-inspired marvel with Cooke Latham, one of the 25 galleries taking part.

How did you begin tufting?

I learned to do it five years ago while studying for my MFA at Goldsmiths University. I initially used it to make masks, but those grew into larger, 3D wearable sculptures that I incorporate into performances. It relates to my interest in rituals and masquerade – how you can hide your identity or reveal certain aspects of it through what you put on your body. Before Goldsmiths, I did a lot of embroidery. Tufting has elements of embroidery, but on a much larger scale.


  • Pretty Lady Kim by Anna Perach, tufted yarn, beads, metal and wood, 2020. Photo: Paul Chapellier © the artist

  • Textile artist Anna Perach. Photo: courtesy of Sarabande Foundation

What themes do you explore?

I was born in Ukraine, and my family moved to Israel when I was small. About seven years ago, I came to the UK. My experience of not belonging, how I’ve chosen to be positioned and the codes of each culture are ideas I’m interested in. Folklore is a helpful tool to use because people can relate to such stories. They have the ability to transform through different periods of time, but still remain current.

Folklore is a helpful tool to use because people can relate to such stories

How does folklore manifest in your work?

I was very influenced by Slavic folklore because that’s my heritage, but the more I looked at different traditions, I found that they have similarities, which drew me to the idea of archetypes – characters that have various representations in different cultures, but symbolise the same thing. For instance, in my exhibition at ADA Project in Rome in March 2021, I continued a series called Seven Wives, which references baroque artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini's sculpture Apollo and Daphne from 1625. At the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art in Israel (31 July 31-20 November 2021), I showed three big tufted characters that reflect on female archetypes.


  • Expansion by Anna Perach, Axminster tufted Yarn, southern yellow pine frame, 2022. Photo: © BJ Deakin Photography

  • Expansion by Anna Perach, Axminster tufted Yarn, southern yellow pine frame, 2022. Photo: © BJ Deakin Photography

What will you be showing at Eye of the Collector in London this month?

I’m showing a new piece entitled Expansion. The inspiration behind it came from thinking about what happens when a vessel cannot contain its contents anymore. In this case, the vessel is vase-shaped, and the contents is a tufted sculpture of a body, which emerges from and expands out of the vase. It's a mutating, metamorphosing body with multiple limbs and faces – while it expands out from the vessel, it is also expanding out from its biology.

Can you tell us what inspired Expansion?

I've been thinking a lot about metamorphosis lately. It's a theme that often appears in Greek mythology: from Arachne, the weaver who was transformed into a spider, to the nymph Daphne who is turned into a tree – there's so many narratives in which people become plants or animals. I'm not quite sure what my character is becoming, but I do know that a transition is taking place.

Eye of the Collector runs from 11 to 14 May 2022 at Two Temple Place, London, and online. An earlier version of this article appeared in Crafts issue 287


Share

  • Facebook 
  • Twitter 
  • Whatsapp 
  • Email 
  • Pinterest 
  • ...

Read more

  • Stories

    What to see at London Craft Week

    • Exhibitions
  • Stories

    The 20th century textile artists you should know

    • Textiles
  • Stories

    Textile designer Alicia Rowbotham reimagines waste silk

    • Crafts magazine
    • Collect 2021
  • Craft careers

    How to become a textile maker

    • Craft careers
    • Textiles
  • Stories

    Textile artist Bisa Butler stitches portraits in patchwork

    • Crafts magazine
    • Textiles

Stay informed and inspired

Select an option to receive a newsletter

Follow us

  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Pinterest

Crafts Council
44a Pentonville Road
London N1 9BY

hello@craftscouncil.org.uk
+44 (0)20 7806 2500

Reg. charity no. 280956

  • Our work
  • Our team
  • Privacy policy