Sakeema Peng Crook

Lead image — Body suit and leg warmers by Rui Zhou, shoes by Rombaut, jewelry by Alan Crocetti

Breaking into the fashion world via radical self acceptance and truly honest self expression, Crook is bringing autonomy and creativity to modeling. In these glossy, radiant, Grace Jones-inspired shots, her riotous yet poised and peaceful demeanor is captivating.

We spoke to Crook below about creativity, fashion, and inspiration.

Left — Corset trousers by Dilara Findikoglu, boots by Rombaut, bracelet by Chloe, rings by Rathel & Wolf, ear jewelry by Alan Crocetti

Right — Full look by Shushu Tong, corset by Fleet Illya, shoes by Chloe, jewelry by Alan Crocetti, choker by Inaurem

Hi!

Hello!

Where have you been based during covid?

In London, mostly. In my bedroom, in my garden, in the parks; I spent a lot of time sunbathing in the park. I don’t know how much we can say, but going to squat raves and warehouse parties.

How is that?

Fun, really fun. I enjoy sitting in and being quiet and still, but you need contrast, right? So yeah, partying as well.

How is it there?

I have no idea, I don’t know what to think of the situation. It feels like they make one rule and then they make another. We’re learning change is so constant, that to just be truly present in the moment with what’s happened is the only salvation, I believe. There’s a new rule you definitely can’t have more than 6 people, so the second wave of lockdown is maybe happening? But then I just did my first live public performance last night.

What kind of performance?

It’s part of a continued collaboration with Keiken, a digital arts collective. We’ve been collaborating for nearly two years, digital world building. We made a CGI film together. It’s called “Feel My Metaverse”, and then there’s a new one, “We Are at the End of Something”. That one was in collaboration with Ryan Vautier. Really fun world building experience where I get to throw out my wildest ideas and then they make into some sort of reality. But the performance last night was a really intimate thing. We made tattoos that augment reality, I don’t wanna say too much…

What did the performance entail?

It was a combination of dance. At first it was about interacting with technology, so the audience members come in and technology is activated through a tattoo or sticker on my chest. So they activate it and they get to see an augmentation of me. After everyone had that experience, then I gave a small dance. A six minute thing, more along the lines of an offering than a performance. I worked as a dancer before and toured the world and danced on big stages, and it took a lot of the heart out of dance… it’s quite cold and meaningless to perform to a black space. When you meet the patrons supporting the work, they really have no interest. So it’s about finding those people you can collaborate with, who have a good intention, who have something that they really care about spreading.

You give so much when you perform, and you want it to be some sort of exchange of energy, and maybe you don’t feel that when you’re performing to a big empty space on a big stage.

Yeah, at that point, I'd rather just dance my own dances on my own. Instead of working so hard to dance someone else’s dance. It’s making something very natural to all of us into a commodity and into fitting into the capitalist system. I’d much rather be in collaborative spaces where if I am dancing, I’m facilitating someone else’s expression, them facilitating mine, so we can really work to grow something together that is honest and true, rather than something that is trying to please an audience. A sharing of energy, definitely.

What would you say your mission is as an artist?

To create change, to show that change is possible. To be free. Above everything, to be free. Freedom for myself, for my loved ones, for any and everyone who can receive it, who can be vulnerable enough to accept it as their reality. To show freedom is possible and it’s the realest thing. Way more real than any kind of lower energy frequencies or emotions.

What makes you feel the most free?

Expressing myself. Expressing myself in the many different ways that are possible. Allowing myself to be multifaceted, and in that, reminding other people of their multifaceted nature. It makes me feel free to realize myself, I guess, and through modeling and through this shoot in particular, I got to realize myself in a way that I’d never been able to physicalize before. That process of collaboration, of bringing something together, it was magic. Jacob and I, the photographer, after it was done, we were looking at some of the photos and we just cried. Because it’s been both of our wildest dreams to create something that really meant something to both of us.

Left — Dress by Paolina Russo, harness by Fleet Ilya, shoes by Rombaut, jewelry by Alan Crocetti & Shaun Leanne

Right — Jacket by Robert Wun, tabis by Maison Margiela, jewelry by Alan Crocetti & Rathel and Wolf

So can you speak a little more on the shoot? What was the idea behind it and how did that translate into the photos?

It was kind of a whirlwind. The day before, I found out it was going to happen. It was meant for another model, but she was so tired from doing other work, and I think Joel had a surplus of clothes from another shoot and wanted to do a full story on it. He was like, the world needs to see you. So yeah, it was, for me, about showing something otherworldly. That something otherworldly is entirely possible at the same time as it being a fashion story. I’ve always been very inspired by Grace Jones, and her work and her collaborations with photographers, and Jacob is also really in line with that. We spoke about how we might make the skin look more alien or more dark and delicious. I really believe he did magic in the edit in creating this alien version of me.

That’s very cool. I see a parallel between photos I’ve seen of Grace Jones… The glowing. The skin. It’s like there’s light behind it. Hard to explain, but I know you know what I’m talking about.

I do, exactly, the combination of… well I put a lot of work into my skin anyway, but the makeup artist, Georgia Hope, she’s a meticulous perfectionist of a makeup artist and she would touch me up and doing things to finite detail, which I really adored, and I think Jacob really wanted to celebrate the melanin, and celebrate the skin. It was also the middle of summer as well so I was naturally more tan and glowy.

What’s one last thing you want to say about these photos?

I guess I wanna say, these images in particular represent a childhood dream coming true. I get to see myself, I continue to, this collaboration in particular… seeing myself in a way I’d always dreamt but never really thought possible. Maybe I always thought it was, but other people told me it wasn’t. So, that really cheesy thing of, Follow your dreams, keep going after it, because it can happen! That’s how I feel.

That’s so special.

Yeah, it’s a good feeling.

What was the artistic collaboration like between you and the photographer?

Jacob and I’s relationship is really special because we’ve always just connected. We haven’t known each other necessarily that long. We met on set for another shoot, and then we partied together and got to know each other, and there’s always been a really great energy between us and an understanding. And then for Joel to kind of oversee all the family together, for it to feel like a family affair in a way. There’s people you vibe with, chill with, create with. It’s that thing of, of course it’s me in the image, but there’s a whole village behind me. A whole community of people helping to get me ready and really being involved in the creation. This is my first full editorial, my first full story. Joel was really teaching me how to understand my body as a model and not just as a dancer. Because as a dancer when I get in front of the camera it’s a very different type of shape that I’m creating, and how to refine that into something else. It’s really exciting for me. The images also represent community and family because there were points when I literally had everyone on me trying to get shoes on and hair on.

I’d like to ask you about your experience in the fashion world and what that’s been like for you. I feel like fashion is moving toward a more intersectional space, but it hasn’t really been that in the past, so what has your experience been with this?

I agree, I think this is a really exciting time. We haven’t seen anything like this really since the 90’s, when fashion was—no shade to the past 15, 20 years—the 90’s was the most exciting time. That was a time when fashion really meant something. When the designers really meant something, the photographers… Fashion was really respected as an art form and as a medium used to create new worlds, to make comments and statements. Fashion has always been the thing that has influenced the world, culture, and politics, and all of that kind of magic. I’m seeing it move into that space again, which is really exciting for me. And then my experience: it’s interesting because I’ve always wanted to be involved with fashion and to model. Specifically, I was obsessed with the 90's and always watched the classics: the Thierry Mugler shows, the old McQueen shows. The drama of it all… the drama of the lives of the models as well as what personality they were bringing on the runway. But it’s only been since the George Floyd awareness and the Black Lives Matter movement that people have started to see me. Which… I’m aware is a thing. But at the same time, I’m like fab, because now is the time.

It’s beyond awful that it takes something so enormous and so horrible for people to start to change, but the change is global right now, and I haven’t seen it this global before.

I agree.

Left — Body suit by Rui Zhou, trousers by Acne, shoes by Chloe, jewelry by Alan Crocetti & Shaun Leanne

Right — Jacket and skirt by Robert Wun, ski suit and glasses by Moncler & Richard Quinn, shoes by Crocs

What have you been working on artistically as of late?

My collaboration with Keiken was most recent because I just got back from tour, I still have my suitcase with me. I’ve been working on using the platform I have to use and develop my own teams, and I’m starting to get little murmurings and feelings and hints that certain publications are wanting me to bring my teams into their spaces with our ideas. So yeah, finding new designers, and the designers and stylists I already knew, and feeling like I can use whatever it is, what recognition or visibility that I have, and use that to bring them along. Then it’s just been a lot of self reflection, a lot of meditation, a lot of healing.

When you’re feeling down, what do you do to cheer yourself up?

I bring myself into the present moment. A friend of mine, a really dear friend, a sister of mine passed recently. Her body was found on a New York beach. So I guess it’s just being present. Being in perspective on a situation, gaining distance. Her name was Elie Che.

I heard, I’m so sorry.

Yeah… One of my dearest sisters, who gave me the shoes I was dancing in last night.

I’m sure she felt it.

She came to London and she made space for me. So celebrating, I guess. There’s always stuff to be celebrated. In her passing, she’s left a huge legacy and left so much that I’m really happy to continue on. Remembering that there is always good in every situation.

So to discuss your activism—do you consider yourself an activist?

Like… no. But everyone should be. “Activist” should be the default. So by me claiming the title, in some people’s eyes, that puts me on a different level, when really I’m saying I’m on the base of… not what we should be doing, but what we all can be doing. Everyone’s activism is going to look like different things. It’s a weird line. It’s an interesting one that I’m recontextualizing. Because I don’t feel compelled to speak at protests anymore. I’ve done that, and in the fight, in the protest, it’s just crazy. So much stress and emotional labor. My activism now will take form in the photos that people see, in the art I make, in the things I create and leave behind as traces. I would much rather be remembered for those things rather than the words I say, I guess. Because what is the English language? You know what I mean?

Culture

The Club Is Coming to the Stage

We enter and make our way to what is approximately front left of the DJ booth, where we’re accustomed to dancing at clubs in New York. “So is this a techno club or a dance performance?” yells an uncertain participant in my boyfriend’s ear. He laughs, bouncing along to Ben UFO, and yells back, “It’s both!” The club has long been a hot topic in European contemporary dance but it is only now making its way into New York performance venues, largely through transatlantic tours. R.O.S.E. follows recent examples like Michele Rizzo’s HIGHER xtn. at MoMA PS1 (May 2024), (LA)HORDE’s Room with a View at NYU Skirball (October 2023), and Gisèle Vienne’s Crowd at BAM (October 2022).

Do these performances compromise the club’s spirit — a space idealized for its anonymity, dark lighting, and thundering music? The notion of the club as a utopian escape is admittedly just that — an ideal — because of how its intense conditions can create barriers to entry. Still, the club remains sacred for many, a place to forge connections and embrace an alternative state of being. Looking at how performances transfer this spirit to new settings reveals what aspects of the club are essential and those that aren’t.

Sharon Eyal, R.O.S.E. 2024. Photography by Stephanie Berger, courtesy of Park Avenue Armory.

Eyal’s dancers make their entrance. The lighting shifts from roving blue to yellow spotlights as Ben UFO’s tracks transition to more melodic beats. Clad in deconstructed lace Dior lingerie with dark red tears painted on their faces, the dancers move cautiously in a tightly maintained pack, slicing paths through the horde with hoof-like steps and jerky leg extensions. After around ten minutes of this controlled choreography, the dancers vanish as the lighting shifts back to blue and Ben UFO picks up his dubby beats. The club, as we knew it, resumes. This cycle of tightly executed movements and free-flowing club-goers repeats several times, each time emboldening the dancers to plunge further into the crowd.

Clubbing in a building once built for the U.S. Army National Guard on Manhattan’s Upper East Side turns out to be surprisingly successful — at least for the audience. What starts as an awkward, scattered group searching for their non existent seats gradually gels into an engaged, bouncing crowd that erupts in cheers each time the dancers enter and exit. Performance patrons who might never step foot in a club find themselves swept up in its potential for communion, moving in unison with fellow ticket holders. But it isn’t until the very end of R.O.S.E. that the dancers finally break free from Eyal’s choreography and join the fired-up audience in a brief moment of improvisatory movement with the music. By keeping her dancers at arm’s length, Eyal seems more interested in the club as a backdrop for her signature movement style than wholly as a space with meaningful stories to be told.

Michele Rizzo, HIGHER xtn. 2024. Photography by Cameron Kelly courtesy of MoMA PS1.

Back in May, I attended Wire Festival, a multiday electronic music event at Knockdown Center that had no shortage of organically united dancefloors. It attracted a crowd of seasoned ravers who were eager to celebrate the start of spring as they danced alongside DJs who played well into the daylight. I left Wire in an afternoon daze to see Michele Rizzo’s HIGHER xtn. at MoMA PS1. My sleepless euphoria only deepened as the performance unfolded, starting with a lone dancer who looked plucked out of the festival.

The dancer, dressed in sneakers, baggy jeans, and a tight tank top, shuffled slowly into the gallery, perfectly in sync with the looping bars of an understated electronic melody. Soon, other dancers, clad in the same staple rave uniform, joined him — each having traveled from Europe for the U.S. museum debut of HIGHER xtn., which premiered at the Stedelijk in Amsterdam in 2018 and quickly became a fixture at kunsthalles and festivals across the continent. As the score’s tempo climbed, the choreography locked into a 16-count sequence, which the dancers executed with precise synchrony. They remained intensely focused, never making eye contact with each other, as they sought release in the endless repetition of synthesized beats. Once the dancers reached their limit, they stopped the sequence and exited the gallery, one by one.

HIGHER xtn. used the focused daylight of the gallery to highlight the meditative release found in the repetitive movements that dominate dark dancefloors. The performance’s restraint brought more consistency and intentionality than Eyal’s all-encompassing club construction in R.O.S.E. Yet both performances offer enticing entry points into club culture for those who may not frequent raves. Rizzo’s ecstatic, hypnotic repetitions reveal how the club can mirror other meditative practices, while Eyal’s interpolation of performance and clubbing helped hesitant audience members blossom by the end. Still, both works overlook one of the most underappreciated aspects of clubbing — its potential for individual expression. HIGHER xtn.’s pristine uniformity especially risks promoting the outdated techno trope that there’s a “right” way to dance to electronic music.

Maybe this shortcoming is, in fact, a benefit. For habitual ravers jaded by one too many sunrise sets, it’s a reminder to return to the club with more intention. If you pause and peer through the darkness, you’ll see hundreds of people moving to the same beat, each with their own subtle variations. This collective choreography is a ready-made spectacle that doesn’t need validation in a theater or museum. And when the music shifts slightly, you can watch the ripple effect sweep through the crowd while feeling the new beat in your body. Maybe this small bit of magic is best left on the dance floor.

Culture

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Culture

Porsche SCOPES Brings Art, Music, and Design to Toronto

The festival was a full immersion into Toronto’s dynamic creative energy. Day one set the tone with DJ collective Living Room, followed by an experimental performance by Claire Rousay that captivated the crowd. Jewelry designer Steff Eleoff unveiled her Porsche Taycan 4S art car installation—a bold fusion of automotive and wearable art inspired by her Sedona ring—while OVO Sound’s Naomi Sharon and DVSN wrapped up the night with powerful, genre-defying performances.

We witnessed SCOPES Toronto bridging underground and mainstream with day two’s lineup. DJ Korea Town Acid’s set paved the way for Angelphroot and Dameer’s debut of BASSMATI, a track blending South Asian influences with bass-driven sounds. Chippy Nonstop’s return to Toronto and Richie Hawtin’s extended set were milestones of the evening, proving that the city’s underground scene has a global resonance.

The final day featured standout performances from local pianist Harrison, Indigenous artist Tia Wood, and hip-hop visionary Sean Leon, who elevated his set with a live choir. Moonshine Collective’s film and musical performance explored themes of African utopia, showcasing art’s power to bridge culture and technology. Rising Toronto star SadBoi, who paused her tour to perform at SCOPES, further underscored the festival’s commitment to nurturing local talent.

Throughout the weekend, we experienced installations from artists like Mitsu Mitsu and culinary creations from Bar Mordecai, capturing the multifaceted creativity Porsche SCOPES brought to Toronto. This milestone 10th edition, open to all, allowed Toronto’s vibrant arts scene to thrive, underscoring SCOPES’ mission to celebrate local talent while connecting it to a global audience.

office had the chance to connect with rising star SadBoi ahead of the event. In our conversation, she shared insights into her creative journey and reflected on what performing and growing up in Toronto means to her and her work.

How are you, and where are you at right now? You told me you were traveling.

Um, I’m good, I’m feeling really good right now. I’m traveling back to Salt Lake City. I had a show yesterday in Seattle. I’m on tour right now with Coco and Claire.

How is touring life treating you? Do you like it?

I love being on the road. To be honest, I feel like I don’t know—like I’ve had good experiences and bad ones—but this time it’s really fun, especially with the people I’m surrounded by. It’s also the longest tour I’ve been on; I have about four more weeks to go. I’m trying not to think about how many days I have left.

Do you feel homesick?

Yes, because when I start thinking about how many days are left, I start to miss my dogs. I’ve just been trying to stay in the moment—I don’t even know what day of the week it is, to be honest with you.

Oh, sweet! What are your dogs’ names?

Jillian and Winston. I know, they’re crazy names.

You’ll be performing at SCOPES in Toronto, which is where you grew up. Do you feel like the crowd is different when you perform in Toronto compared to other cities?

Yes, I mean, Toronto just feels different because it’s home. Every time I come back to perform, something in my career has changed. The last time I performed in Toronto, people just wanted to have a good time, and I’m excited to perform back home again to see everyone’s reactions. I know it’s going to be different from the last time. It’s exciting to see your own growth. Toronto is a tough crowd, though. If we’re with you, we’re really with you.

So, they’re super picky? You have to gain their respect, or what is it?

I think Toronto people are in their own world, but when something really connects with them, they’ll lose themselves in the moment. But it takes something to bring them out of that. Toronto crowds are tough because even if they like you, they won’t show it outright until they’re really vibing with you.

It’s like a vibe check, right?

Exactly. They’ll enjoy your performance, but it’s hard to explain. When people visit Toronto, they often say, “Oh, you guys are so nice,” and I’m like, “I don’t think we’re that nice, we’re just polite.” Like, you can walk down the street, and no one will say anything, but it’s just our mannerisms.

You mentioned Toronto can have a moody energy, especially at night, and that the underground night scene there really inspires you. Can you talk more about what makes Toronto's nightlife so influential for you?

Absolutely, Toronto has this unique energy that comes alive at night. Similar to New York, there are the popular clubs everyone knows, but you need to find your niche—the people who know where the real parties are. I remember going to raves in high school yards, sneaking in because I wasn’t old enough. Events like Baby, Jerk!, and Yes Yes Y’all were pivotal, exposing me to DJs blending dancehall with EDM—something I hadn’t seen before. Toronto nightlife is moody and intense, but when everyone’s out, it’s like the whole city is alive.