ARTension: Straight forward with
...Koyo Kouoh!

The terrain of artistic and intellectual practice in Africa is in rapid change. New spaces, new climates, new languages of negotiations and mediations are arising on the landscape. The age of representation and advocacy from the late 80's through the early 00's is gradually replaced by a new generation of practitioners interested in the power of localities and their environments. This talk will engage with significant voices in that field to draw a new cartography of production and discourse for Africa.

Koyo Kouoh is a cameroonian born independent exhibition maker and cultural producer educated in Banking Administration and Cultural Management in Switzerland and France. She is the founder and artistic director of Raw Material Company, a center for art, knowledge and society. Kouoh is currently serving as agent to Carolyn Christov-Barkagiev’s documenta 13. She collaborated with the Dakar Biennale of Art from 2000-2004 and co-curated with Simon Njami Les Rencontres de la Photographie Africaine in Bamako in 2001 and 2003. Specializing in photography, video and art in the public space, she has curated numerous exhibitions internationally and written on contemporary African art. Her latest exhibitions Hypocrisy: The Site Specifity of Morality co-curated with Stina Hoegkvist was on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Oslo. In collaboration with Anne-Marie Bouttiaux and David Adjaye, she curated the contemporary section of GEO-graphics, an exhibition that celebrated 50 years of African Independence at Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels in 2010. She co-curated Make yourself at home, contemporary hospitality in a changed world an exhibition and community program in collaboration with Charlotte Bagger-Brandt for Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen. The project reflected on the notion of hospitality in contemporary art in the context of international migrations. Kouoh is associate curator of Salon Urbain de Douala, a festival of art in the public space initiated by Doual’art in Douala, Cameroon. She lives and works in Dakar.

ARTension

Artension is an open platform for a critical discourse on and between artistic, scientific and other socially relevant positions. We invite guests to present their projects and discuss their subjects of interest in a public debate. We create a space for direct and intense engagement with concrete ideas, as well as a possibility for a first-hand experience, which can be meaningful for the audience.