Rachel Cook

Rachel Cook is the Artistic Director of On the Boards, a Contemporary Performance Center in Seattle. Prior to On the Boards, Cook was Curator at DiverseWorks in Houston, Texas where she commissioned projects by Keren Cytter, Danielle Dean, Kate Gilmore, Chelsea Knight, Kristin Lucas, Liz Magic Laser, Wu Tsang, Heather Rowe, taisha paggett, Sondra Perry, Shelia Pepe, Julien Prévieux, and Mark Tribe. Additionally, Cook curated a number of group exhibitions and performance pieces including What Shall We Do Next? that considered ideas of the real in relation to physical materials, technology, and advertising. Also, The School for the Movement of the Technicolor People, a large-scale installation and performance platform by Los Angeles-based artist taisha paggett and WXPT in collaboration with Ashley Hunt and Kim Zumpfe in which the question, “What is a Black dance curriculum today?” was posed with local company members. In 2015 she received a Curatorial Fellowship from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts to research a series of Walker Evans’ photographs from the African Negro Art exhibition at MoMA in 1935. Cook holds a MA from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College and a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the National Performance Network.