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Her journey into the arts began with a trip to Dakar in 1995 to interview legendary filmmaker Ousmane Sembène. That encounter, and the intellectual climate of Senegal, would prove pivotal.“ I moved to Senegal because I wanted to be part of a context that allowed me to think of art not as something to be explained or justified, but as a language,” she once reflected. Dakar became her home, her laboratory, and her stage.
RAW Material Company: A Laboratory for Thought
Flashmag! Issue 161 June 2025
In 2008, Kouoh founded RAW Material Company, a center for art, knowledge, and society in Dakar.“ I wanted to really reflect on art, on artistic practice, and to contribute to the understanding of artistic practice as its own system of thought and as a mechanism for participating in visual culture, society, politics,” she explained. RAW began as a modest initiative without a fixed space, eventually growing into a complex comprising galleries, studios, residencies, and a robust library.
For Kouoh, RAW was never merely an art space— it was a curatorial intervention. She challenged the inherited structures of postcolonial cultural administration, particularly in Francophone Africa, where centralized state control had long stifled independent creativity.“ My concern is with institution building as a curatorial practice,” she said.“ To establish organizations that survive their founders and support professionals, artists, thinkers, writers, you name it, well into the future.”
RAW’ s publications and programs mirrored her belief in art as a force for social critique and political engagement. From monographs on Senegalese artists like Issa Samb to symposiums like Condition Report, Kouoh’ s work insisted on creating archives and discourse from within Africa— not for external validation but for internal reflection.
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