As an adult, she moved to Dakar to build an art career, working as an independent curator and founding an artist's residency and exhibition space, the RAW Material Company.

[3] In 1994, Kouoh co-edited Töchter Afrikas, a German-language companion to Margaret Busby’s Daughters of Africa and a collection of writings by women of the African diaspora.

After encountering the city's art scene, including meeting painter Issa Samb, and frustrated with anti-black racism in Europe, Kouoh decided to move to Dakar and pursue an art-related career.

[3] Kouoh has served as curatorial advisor for Documenta 12 (2007) and 13 (2012) and the EVA International (Republic of Ireland's biennial of contemporary art) in 2016.

[7] It included artists such as Kader Attia, Liam Gillick, Abdoulaye Konaté, Alice Maher, and Tracey Rose.

[8] In 2014, Kouoh was the curator of the education programme at 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London[3][9] and helped to reform the Dakar Biennale.

"[2] Over the next year, Kouoh expanded the curatorial team and the board of trustees, as well as adding artist residency programs.

[2] The Rose retrospective also toured to the Queens Museum, where a New York Times reviewer described it as dealing with "post-colonial complexities, such as repatriation, recompense and reckoning".

[11] Kouoh was part of the jury that selected Shu Lea Cheang as recipient of the LG Guggenheim Award in 2024.