When I met Koyo Kouoh earlier this year, the Investec Cape Town Art Fair had flooded the city with curators, collectors, artists, and admirers. At Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA), where Kouoh had reigned as director since 2019, she was in the middle of hosting, chairing, and orchestrating a week that pulsed with creative momentum.

She arrived a few minutes late—unsurprising, given her high demand. Still, she walked in like someone who knew exactly what time it was. No wasted movements, no small talk. There was a cadence to her focus that felt boardroom-sharp, perhaps a holdover from her former life in finance. The conversation opened like a ledger: direct, deliberate, and structured.

But then we spoke of art, and the edges softened.

When we reached the subject of community, artists on the continent, and the work happening in Cape Town, Dakar, and across the African diaspora, her posture shifted, her voice warmed, and her eyes brightened. You could feel it then: the depth of Kouoh’s love for this world she helped build, not just as a curator or cultural gatekeeper but as someone who had devoted her life to creating room for others to thrive.

We spoke about the need to celebrate artists locally before seeking recognition abroad (as she put it: “We have to see ourselves first”); about staying rooted, even when the winds of relevance and ambition try to lift you off the ground; and about the importance of keeping hubris in check—how one must always remain focused on the work, not on the noise that surrounds it.

It struck me that day—and still does, in the wake of Kouoh’s sudden death, at just 57, over the weekend—that for someone who had ascended to the most visible heights of the art world (she had recently been named curator of the 2026 Venice Biennale), Kouoh moved with the soul of someone who never forgot why she started. She didn’t chase legacy; she nurtured it. “There are so many urgencies,” she said. “You just have to do the work.”

South Africa and the artists working within it became one of the mirrors Kouoh helped to polish. Through Zeitz MOCAA, she nurtured not just an institution but an atmosphere, one that let artists go inward and create not merely for spectacle, but for truth.

Kouoh felt that physically having the room to make art was effectively as vital as the creation itself. “The artistic space,” she said, “is a space of freedom, of the imaginary. It gives you room to breathe, reflect, and project.”