Before Rachel worked as Curator at DiverseWorks in Houston, Texas. Major accomplishments include the commissioning of French artist Julien Previeux’s first staged dance work, What Shall We Do Next? (2016) and the organization of the group exhibition of the same name, featuring Previeux, Kristin Lucas, Danielle Dean, and Versace Versace Versace; and the commissioning and presentation of multidisciplinary performance projects including Takahiro Yamamoto’s Direct Path to Detour (2017), Wura-Natasha Ogunji’s House of Wahala (2017), Meg Wolfe’s New Faithful Disco (2016), taisha paggett’s The School for the Movement of the Technicolor People (2016), Tahni Holt’s Duet Love (2015), and Dean Moss’s johnbrown (2015).
During her five-year tenure she also revitalized the Artist Advisory Board, developed and organized the Diverse Discourse visiting curators series, and managed The Idea Fund re-granting program. A native of Houston, Cook has played an integral role in the identity and overall artistic programming of DiverseWorks. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the National Performance Network.
Prior to joining DiverseWorks, Cook worked for dOCUMENTA(13)’s publication team, and was a fellow for the International Studio & Curatorial Program in New York. Cook holds a MA from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College and a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. Last year 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.