WHAT ARE CLOTHES?

ZAKIAH OMAR

spent most of her adult years away from her hometown, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. After pre-university and undergraduate studies in Construction Technology in Sydney, Australia, and in Hull, England, she returned to Kuala Lumpur in 1986, but joined the Press instead of the construction industry.

In 1990, she came to Berlin, met her husband, Hanno Baethe, a videomaker. Together they made art documentary videos. Her passion for non-linear interactive forms grew after she co-conceptualised and co-produced the documentary video for a hypermedia project for the Massachussetts Institute of Technology in 1995. Two years later, she joined Middlesex University’s Design for Interactive Media Masters Programme.

Her stations include Artistic Researcher, Braunschweig School of Art and a tenured Professorship in Media Design, Potsdam University of Applied Arts. She left this to join the Konrad Wolf Film and Television Academy as Professor for Scenography with New Media. She is currently researching and developing wearables linked to narrative interactive media, with special emphasis on children.