Plan your visit
East Gallery – located at the heart of the Norwich campus, the gallery hosts international exhibitions.
A Leap of Sympathy
12pm – 4pm Friday 12 September 2025 – Saturday 13 December 2025
In this exhibition, Anna Perach reflects on philosopher Henri Bergson’s emphasis on intuition and lived experience in understanding reality, subverting conventional notions of softness and femininity.
London-based artist Anna Perach (b. 1985, Zaporizhzhia) presents A Leap of Sympathy, an exhibition inspired by E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Gothic fiction The Tales of Hoffmann. Perach’s bold wearable sculptures blur the boundaries between the beautiful and the grotesque, the ornamental and the uncanny. Using a traditional tufting technique, she reimagines archetypal figures as hybrid forms, challenging myths surrounding gender and identity and art and craft.
This exhibition title draws from philosopher Henri Bergson, who emphasized intuition and lived experience over strict rationalism in our understanding of reality. Bergson suggests that, since we cannot empirically prove another person’s internal experience, we must take a ‘leap of sympathy’—a leap of trust—to relate to them. Such reflections are encapsulated in the work Olimpia, two large-scale feminine sculptures which form the focal point of the exhibition: one brought to life by a live performer, while the other operates as a clockwork automaton.
Perach’s work weaves corporeal forms out of tufted yarn, in a nod towards folk crafts traditionally associated with women artisans and domestic interiors. The artist’s practice subverts conventional notions of softness and femininity, taking aim at the ways in which patriarchal systems have sought to dictate and to define women’s bodies and minds.
This exhibition was cocreated with Richard Saltoun Gallery, London, where it was shown earlier this year. For all enquiries relating to press and sales, please contact Sonja Tezsler on sonja@richardsaltoun.com
Images courtesy of Richard Saltoun and the artist.
About the artist
Anna Perach’s practice explores the dynamic between personal and cultural myths. Specifically, she is interested in how our private narratives are deeply rooted in ancient folklore and storytelling. Her work interweaves female archetypes into sculptural hybrids to examine ideas of identity, gender, and craft.
Perach’s main medium of work is wearable sculpture and performance. She works in a technique of tufting, making hand-made carpet textile, which she then transforms into wearable artworks. The wearable sculpture functions as both a garment that is performed in as well as a freestanding sculpture. Through this medium, she examines how elements associated with the domestic sphere such as textiles and carpet operate as an extension of the self and reflect one’s heritage and gender role. As Perach performs the tufted, domestic carpets, they take the function of an added layer of skin. This skin hides the physical body but exposes fragments of the self.
Perach lives and works in London. She holds an MFA in fine art (distinction) from Goldsmiths, University of London (2020). Her recent institutional solo exhibitions include Holes, Gasworks, London, UK (2024) and The Moon Prophecy, Herzliya Museum of contemporary art, Herzliya, IL (2021). Significant group exhibitions include Antigone: Women in Fibre Art, Richard Saltoun Gallery, London, UK (2023), Shamans, Communicate with the invisible, Mart, Trento, IT (2023), Threads, Arnolfini, Bristol, UK (2023), Unruly bodies, Goldsmiths CCA, London, UK (2023). Perach was the recipient of the Hopper prize (2023), The Ingram Prize, and the Gilbert Bayes award (both in 2021).
Events
In conversation with Anna Perach and Ann Coxon
Friday 24 October, 6-7:30pm
Join us for an in-conversation event with London-based artist Anna Perach, and curator, writer and researcher, Ann Coxon, within the framework of Perach’s current solo exhibition A Leap of Sympathy at East Gallery.
Book your free ticketPerformances
At the centre of A Leap of Sympathy are two large-scale feminine sculptures: one brought to life by a live performer, while the other operates as a clockwork automaton. Join us for a live performance event featuring, Laima Leyton (composer and artist), Jody Deschutter (sound assistant), Luigi Ambrosio (choreographer) and Maria Sole Montacci (performer).
Saturday 25 October, 2pm
Book your free ticketSaturday 22 November, 2pm
Book your free ticketExhibition Opening Times
12-5pm Tuesday – Friday
12-4pm Saturday
Other events
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Hats Off! Hidden Histories of Millinery and Making
Free event • 10am – 4.30pm 8 November – 12 November
Led by Norwich University of the Arts in partnership with Norwich Castle, explore the hidden histories of hat-making as part of Being Human Festival.
Read more about Hats Off! Hidden Histories of Millinery and Making
