Koyo Kouoh: There is no escape from shaping society

There is no escape from shaping society: Art and non partisan politics in the public realm
Presentation by Koyo Kouoh

In 2011, a group of young Senegalese professionals from the larger hip-hop community set out to redefine the notion of civic participation. They launched the movement Y'en a marre. The phrase is at best translated into "we are fed up". The project aimed at bringing afore a fresh and engaged political attitude and revive people's consciousness of their power over the political elite. This talk will retrace a critical moment of this initiative played out through the exhibition Chronicle of a Revolt: Photographs of a Season of Protest organised by Raw Material Company with the participation of Y'en a Marre.

Koyo Kouoh is the founding artistic director of RAW Material Company, a center for art, knowledge and society in Dakar and the curator of FORUM, the education programme at 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London. She served as curatorial advisor for documenta 12 (2007) and 13 (2012). Her recent projects include Body Talk: Feminism, Sexuality and the Body in the work of six African women artists, (WIELS, Lunds Konsthal, 49N6E FRAC Lorraine), 2015), ‘Word!Word?Word! Issa Samb and the undecipherable form’, (RAW Material Company/OCA/Sternberg Press), 2013, the first monograph dedicated to the work of seminal Senegalese artist Issa Samb. ‘Condition Report on Building Art Institutions in Africa’, a collection of essays resulting from the eponymous symposium held in Dakar in January 2012. Besides a sustained theoretical and exhibition program at RAW Material Company, she maintains a dynamic international curatorial, advisory and judging activity.