Meet the Artists: Session 7
Andrew Roberts, Anna Perach, and Mamali Shafahi
Andrew, Anna, and Mamali will be in residence at Fountainhead from September 17 to October 15, 2025.
Their residency programs are sponsored in part by Hesty Leibtag and Terry Verk.
Andrew Roberts Berrios
Andrew Roberts (b. 1995, Tijuana) lives and works in Mexico City. He has built his practice across gameplay, roleplay, and worldbuilding, creating multi-platform narratives that materialize through digital animations, objects, and poetry. By mining the history of monsters and the material dimension of horror, he is primarily concerned with economic systems deeply rooted in death, the use of cultural artifacts as instruments of violence, the gamification of the arms industry, and the haunting relationship between Mexico and the United States of America.
He has presented solo exhibitions at the Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC), and the Pequod Co. and House of Chappaz galleries. In 2025, the SCAD Museum of Art will present his first institutional solo exhibition in the US, and his work will be included in the 36th São Paulo Biennial. His work has been included among others at the Whitney Biennial: Quiet As It’s Kept (2022), the Athens Biennale: Eclipse (2021), the Museo Jumex (2021) and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (2018). In 2017, together with Mauricio Muñoz, he founded Deslave, an artist-run space in Tijuana that was open until 2023.
Anna Perach
Anna Perach (1985, Ukraine)’s practice explores the dynamic between personal and cultural myths. She’s interested in how our private narratives are deeply rooted in ancient folklore and storytelling. In her work, she interweaves female archetypes into sculptural hybrids in order to examine ideas of identity, gender, and craft.
Anna lives and works in London, UK. She holds an MFA in fine art (distinction) trom Goldsmiths, University of London (2020). In 2024, Anna presented an institutional solo show with Gasworks, London, UK. Other solo shows include ADA gallery, Rome, IT (2023), Edel Assanti gallery, London, UK (2022) and Herzliya Museum of contemporary art, Herzliya, IL (2021). Anna has exhibited in international art fairs such as Arrtissima with ADA gallery where she won the Carol Rama award, Arco Madrid with The Ryder gallery and Art Cologne with Sommer gallery. Significant group exhibitions include Shamans, Communicate with the invisible, Mart, Trento, IT (2023), Threads, Arnolfini, Bristol, UK (2023), Unruly bodies, Goldsmiths CCA, London, UK (2023), Antigone, Richard Saltoun gallery, London, UK. Anna was one of the winners of the Hopper prize (2023), The lngram Prize, and the Gilbert Bayes award (both in 2021 ). Recent publications include The Guardian and The Art Newspaper.
Mamali Shafahi
Mamali Shafahi (B.1982, lives in Paris-Tehran) His immersive and mixed-media installations include sound and light and deliver a visual feast adorned with enigmatic chimeras that defy categorisation. His works serve as mirrors reflecting the complexitiesvof cultural diversity and identity, shattering stereotypes and inviting viewers to embracevthe richness that lies beneath the surface. They provide a getaway to the realms of fantasy while paying tribute to his Iranian heritage. Within a mesmerising environment of optical illusions, viewers are transported beyond their everyday experience into a state of equilibrium between the magical and the terrible, fantasy and horror. As part of “Daddy Sperm”, he worked on an experimental docu-fiction film, Nature Morte, involving his parents. This film was the backbone of an installation at City Princes/ses at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris in 2019. His VR project, nerd_funk, with Ali Eslami, have been featured at Het nieuwe instituut, Rotterdam, the Vancouver Biennale and IDFA film. Italso won the Golden Calf award for Best interactive film at the Netherlands Film Festival.
