Koyo Kouoh

Early Life

Koyo Kouoh was a visionary cultural architect whose life bridged continents, disciplines and histories. Born in Douala, Cameroon, and educated in Switzerland, she brought a global outlook to her deep commitment to Africa’s contemporary art landscape. Through founding the RAW Material Company in Dakar and later leading the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) in Cape Town, she re-imagined how art institutions could operate: as platforms for critical dialogue, community, and transformation rather than mere display. Her career stands as a testament to the power of art to reshape narratives and open doors to voices long marginalized.

Kouoh entered the world on 24 December 1967 in Douala, Cameroon. Growing up in her home country, she absorbed the rhythms of cultural flux at a time and place where post-colonial identity, language and art were already in motion. At age 13, her life shifted when her family relocated to Zurich, Switzerland. Suddenly immersed in a different language, culture and pace, she confronted her identity as African, Black and diasporic in a European context that often silenced the very voices she would later amplify.

In Switzerland she studied business administration and banking — a practical path, diverging from what would become her life’s work. But it was precisely in these early dislocations — from Cameroon to Switzerland — that Kouoh developed the dual perspective that would define her: the ability to navigate global systems and to challenge them from within.

Education

Though initially grounded in finance, Kouoh’s education took a decisive turn as she explored cultural management in France and beyond. Fluent in French, German, English and Italian, she combined linguistic facility with deep curiosity about how art and institutions function. Her transition from banking to art-world inquiry was not abrupt but thoughtful: she recognized that the mechanics of economy and power underpin even the most idealist creative spaces.

A key moment: in 1994 she co-edited a German-language anthology of writings by women of the African diaspora — a project that marked her emerging commitment to making visible the unseen. Soon after, she travelled to Dakar, interviewed filmmaker Ousmane Sembène, and decided to relocate, drawn by the possibilities of working in Africa’s rapidly evolving contemporary art scene.

Career Journey

Early Career: Foundations in Dakar

In the early 2000s, Kouoh immersed herself in curatorial practice. She co-curated major events in Africa, such as photography biennials in Bamako, and began shaping her approach: one that merges art with knowledge, activism and institution-building.

In 2008, she founded the RAW Material Company in Dakar — a bold leap. This was no typical gallery: it was a centre for art, knowledge and society; a place of residencies, exhibitions, publishing and dialogue. Under her leadership, RAW became a vital hub not only for African artists but for global conversations about representation, memory, identity and power. One telling example: a touring show she curated titled Body Talk: Feminism, Sexuality and the Body in the Work of Six African Women Artists challenged dominant narratives head-on.

Major Achievements & Turning Points

In 2019, Kouoh assumed the role of Executive Director and Chief Curator at Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town — Africa’s largest museum of contemporary art. She inherited an institution fraught with internal issues and a need for renewal. Over the next years she revitalized its vision: expanded artist residencies, shifted programming toward solo retrospectives of African and diasporic artists, and insisted on the museum as site of both reflection and action.

Her appointment in December 2024 as Artistic Director of the 61st Venice Biennale marked a milestone: she became the first African woman tapped for this role. The appointment was a recognition of her global influence — and sadly, a bittersweet one, as she passed away shortly thereafter in May 2025 before the Biennale’s theme was announced.

Later Career: Legacy in Motion

Even in her final years, Kouoh’s work remained dynamic. She continued publishing, mentoring emerging curators, probing the politics of institution-building and art infrastructure in Africa. She unfolded an agenda larger than art objects: one of access, justice, collaboration and re-imagining global art systems from an African vantage point.

Personal Life

Outside the spotlight, Kouoh was known for her warmth, intelligence and quiet drive. She lived between Cape Town, Dakar and Basel, bridging worlds as fluidly as she did languages. Her personal journey — from Cameroon to Switzerland to Senegal to South Africa — mirrored the diasporic and transnational currents she so often sourced in her work. A notable personal detail: she spoke of being shaped by her ancestors’ traditions, saying she believed in “parallel lives and realities,” a reflection of the non-linear view of time that informed much of her curatorial thinking.

Legacy

Koyo Kouoh’s legacy is vast and lasting. She didn’t simply curate exhibitions — she re-engineered structures, foregrounded overlooked narratives and built institutions that ask as many questions as they answer. Through her work at RAW and Zeitz MOCAA, she championed African and diasporic voices and opened rooms — literal and metaphorical — for their emergence.

Her imminent role at the Venice Biennale stood to further cement her vision of art as global and inclusive. Even though she passed away before seeing it to fruition, the outlines she drew remain: a world in which artists, curators and communities from Africa are not peripheral, but central.

In the shifting landscape of contemporary art, Kouoh will be remembered not just as a curator, but as a catalyst — a woman who carried her convictions into halls of power, turned museums into conversation spaces, and left the art world more open, interrogative and alive. Her door remains wide open for those who come next — because she built it that way.