One does not have to know Koyo Kouoh personally to feel the wound opened by her sudden departure. Heavy hearts in the art world and beyond are collectively mourning the loss of a pioneering curator whose compassion and critical discourse has chartered us into new (re)understandings. Across borders and continents, Kouoh has envisioned, formed, bridged, and stewarded people-centered initiatives that uphold a pan-African spirit and radical solidarity. Since her passing on 10 May 2025, floods of tributes have rained in her honor, remembering the grace and light of her leadership.

Born in Douala in 1967, Kouoh was a visionary Cameroonian-Swiss curator whose work reshaped contemporary art from Africa and its Diaspora. She founded RAW Material Company in Dakar in 2008, a vibrant center for art, knowledge, and society that became a key platform for critical discourse and emerging artists across the continent.

Kouoh’s international reputation solidified in 2019 when she was appointed executive director and chief curator of Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town. Under her leadership, the museum expanded its reach and ambition, mounting landmark exhibitions such as When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting (2002–23) and retrospectives for artists such as Tracey Rose and Otobong Nkanga.

She also played an influential role in global art events, making curatorial contributions to documentas 12 and 13 and curating the 37th EVA International in Ireland (2016): titled Still (the) Barbarians, it explored the 1916 Easter Rising and postcolonialism. Her 2015 exhibition Body Talk in Brussels and Metz, a feminist endeavor presenting six women artists from Africa active since the late 1990s, was widely acclaimed.

In December 2024, Kouoh was named curator of the 2026 Venice Biennale, and she would have been the first African woman to hold that prestigious role – a historic milestone in the art world. Her appointment was announced as “the acknowledgment of a broad horizon of vision at the dawn of a day profuse with new words and eyes.” Her own statement celebrated artists as “visionaries and social scientists.”

In conversation with C& in 2018, Kouoh likewise emphasized the work of championing and serving artists. “Curators are storytellers that use grammars and vocabularies provided by art and artists,” she said, adding: “Luckily artistic practice is an open field of expression and experimentation that participates in world-making; and artists are integral to that process.”

According to the New York Times, Kouoh’s family attributed her death to a recent cancer diagnosis. Both RAW Material Company and Zeitz MOCAA briefly paused programming and welcomed tributes in their spaces and online. Institutions and friends continue to share messages of remembrance and condolence to Kouoh’s loved ones.

In a show-must-go-on culture, Kouoh’s passing asks us to reflect on why and how it goes on. Remembered for living out her belief that people are more important than things, Kouoh will remain a global beacon of possibility and integrity across generations. Her legacy is a living testament of resonance.