Extract from Anna Perach's performance on the occasion of Spidora, her first solo exhibition in the UK at Edel Assanti.
Spidora is the exhibition's protagonist: a woman-arthropod hybrid in the form of a wearable sculpture, inspired by a Victorian illusion invented by the American magician Henry Roltair. This entertaining act, which toured America with travelling carnivals, presented a curious beast that had a real woman's head grafted onto the body of a spider, jarring contrast of female beauty with monstrosity. Perach's sculpture and performance elaborates this 'hideous' form. From a vivid tufted body, multiple body parts including heads, hands, breasts and legs, protrude and accentuate the character's contradictions: she is both feminine and grotesque, hidden and exposed, human and animal, powerful but a victim of her condition.
