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TopFlash
Koyo kouoh Pan-Africanism as an ideological force in art
Flashmag! Issue 161 June 2025
Koyo Kouoh was a trailblazing Cameroonian-Swiss curator, institutional visionary, and cultural thinker whose influence fundamentally reshaped the understanding of contemporary African art. As the founding director of RAW Material Company in Dakar and later the executive director and chief curator of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa( Zeitz MOCAA) in Cape Town, Kouoh cultivated a lifelong mission: to build spaces of critical inquiry, institutional sustainability, and cultural self-definition across Africa and beyond.
A Transcontinental Formation
Born on December 24, 1967, in Douala, Cameroon, Kouoh relocated to Zurich, Switzerland, in her adolescence. Her early education was in banking and business administration— pragmatic beginnings that she would later credit for her success in institution-building. A turning point came in the early 1990s when she encountered Daughters of Africa, the landmark anthology edited by Margaret Busby. Deeply moved, she co-edited Töchter Afrikas in 1994, offering German-speaking audiences a powerful chorus of African women’ s voices.
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