Cocky Eek

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Illumine by Cocky Eek - Image found on Cocky's website .

studied Fashion Design at the Utrecht School of the Arts 1989-1993 and graduated with a final collection 'Fashion is So Ugly You Have to Change it Every Half Year' [MA]. Her wearable collections are amongst presented at Le Salon des Jeunes Stylistes - Hyeres and Moda Mas - Amsterdam.

She has been a guest teacher at the Utrecht School of the Arts, Konstfack University College of Arts and Design - Stockholm 1994-2004. She collaborated with designer Maria Blaisse investigating form and material in relation to the moving body, resulting in the Kuma Guna series for dance/performance 1999-2002. Together they gave Finding Form master-classes at MA European Fashion & Textile Design taking place in Paris – Utrecht – Bruxelles - Southampton, The International Summer Academy of Fine Arts - Salzburg 2000, and Curtin University of Technology - Perth /Australia 2009.
Since 2001, Cocky Eek is an active member of FoAM (Bruxelles) where in close relation with scientists, technicians and mediadesigners she did the spatial designs for responsive environments as: Tgarden presented at V2 -Rotterdam and Ars Electronica Festival - Linz 2001, TxOom shown in Greath Yarmouth - UK 2002, and TRG presented at Maribor- Slovenia 2005.
Since the millennium her work has been mainly revolving around lightweight spatial compositions and her favorite media are wind and air. This resulted in floating or flying experiments or large, voluminous pneumatic forms constructed to capture air. She creates environments that translate this material into a tangible experience of form and volume. Her human-kite performances together with Patrick de Koning were shown at various festivals along coastal lines, such as the Oerol Festival - NL, The International Kite Festival –Weifang/China 2004 and Birdmanshow – Changsa/China 2007. Since 2005 she co-directs FoAM (Amsterdam) whose main focus in the last years has been the topic of human-plant inter-relationships. Since 2009 she is heading the Tactile Research Lab at the ArtScience Interfaculty of the Royal Conservatory and the Royal Academy in The Hague. Recently she received Ars Electronica Honorary Mention.