Biography
Cameroonian by birth and Senegalese by heart, Koyo Kouoh is an exhibition maker and the founding artistic director of Raw Material Company, a center for art, knowledge and society in Dakar. Koyo is chief-curator of Celeste Prize 2015, 7th edition and curator of the education programme at 1:54, Contemporary African Art Fair in London. Kouoh has served as curatorial advisor for documenta 12 (2007) and 13 (2012), and co-curated Les Rencontres de la Photographie Africaine in Bamako in 2001 and in 2003. She was a member of the Golden Lion Jury at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003. In 2014, she was entrusted by the European Union and the Senegalese Ministry of Culture with the development of a thorough reform of the Dakar Biennial. Specializing in photography, video and art in the public space, she has curated numerous exhibitions in Senegal, Brazil, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and the U.S. and written on contemporary African art. Her recent projects include ‘Personal Liberties’, a program comprised of three exhibitions, seminars, talks, screenings and an upcoming publication looking at sexuality in Africa, homosexuality and homophobia, ‘Condition Report on Building Art Institutions in Africa’, a collection of essays resulting from the eponymous symposium held in Dakar in January 2012, ‘WORD! WORD? WORD! Issa Samb and the Undecipherable Form’, the first monograph dedicated to the work of seminal Senegalese, process oriented, artist Issa Samb. She co-curated “Hypocrisy: The Site Specificity of Morality,” National Museum for Art, Architecture, and Design, Oslo (2009); the contemporary section of “GEO-graphics: A Map of Art Practices in Africa, Past and Present,” BOZAR, Brussels (2010); and “Make Yourself at Home,” Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2010). Kouoh is associate curator of SUD 2010, Salon Urbain de Douala. She was the coordinator of cultural programs at the Gorée Institute in Senegal from 1998 to 2002; collaborated with the Dakar Biennale from 2000 to 2004. EVA International, Ireland’s Biennial in Limerick, has chosen Koyo as curator of the 38th edition of EVA in 2016. Koyo lives and works in Dakar and Basel.
