At a conference held at London’s Somerset House as part of the 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair in 2015, the name of the organiser came up again and again. “Koyo Kouoh,” hooted an Iranian participant to her eager audience. “We need to have her cloned.”
Over the decade that followed, it seemed as though this might actually have happened. Kouoh, who has died aged 57 after being diagnosed with cancer, was impossibly ubiquitous. In 2015, she was living and working in Dakar, Senegal, where in 2008 she had set up an artists’ residency called Raw Material. Seven years later, Raw Material had come to include a gallery, exhibition space and a mentoring programme for young Senegalese artists.
