Cameroonian by birth and Senegalese at heart, Koyo Kouoh is an exhibition maker and cultural producer whose curatorial work revolves around the redefinition of the contemporary African persona. She is the founding artistic director of RAW Material Company, a center for art, knowledge and society in Dakar.
Kouoh served as curatorial advisor to Documenta 12 in 2007, and Documenta 13 in 2012. From 2000 to 2004, she collaborated with the Dakar Biennale, and in 2001 and 2003, she co-curated the African Photography Biennial. Her most recent projects include Chronicle of a Revolt: Photographs of a Season of Protest, at Raw Material Company and Haus der Kulturen der Welt in 2012, Condition Report on Building Art Institutions in Africa, a collection of essays resulting from the eponymous symposium held in Dakar in January 2012, and Word!Word?Word! Issa Samb and the Undecipherable Form, the first monograph dedicated to the work of Senegalese artist Issa Samb. In addition the theoretical and exhibition program at Raw Material Company, Kouoh curates exhibitions and organises discoursive programs worldwide.
Under the auspices of the London-based company Art Africa Ltd, she is responsible for the artistic selection and the theoretical programme of 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair, inaugurated in London in October 2013. She lives and works in Dakar.
