First held in November 2005, the Arts in Marrakech (AiM) festival is the first major Trilingual (English, Arabic & French) festival in North Africa. Focusing on cutting-edge contemporary art and literature it heralded Marrakech as a hot new destination in the arts and literature world alongside Venice, Edinburgh and Miami. The event was attended by such prodigious names as Anthony Gormley, Hanif Kureishi and Annie Lennox, and attracted an impressive gathering of writers, artists, intellectuals and critics.

AiM 2007 brought acclaimed writers, directors and artists from across Morocco and the world together in a rich forum of debate and cooperation. Some of the highlights included Alan Yentob discussing with John Boorman, Richard E. Grant and Faouzi Bensaidi, the ups and downs of creating auto-biographical films; a timely and spirited debate about literature and identity with Hari Kunzru, Mohsin Hamid, Yassin Adnan and, arguably one of Morocco’s greatest living writers, Edmond El Maleh; superb readings by Hari Kunzru, Zadie Smith and Mohsin Hamid from their latest novels; and evocative poetry readings in Arabic and English by Moroccan poet Yassin Adnan and Northern Irish poet Nick Laird.

AiM 2007 opened with ‘9 Perspectives from South Africa’, a contemporary photographic exhibition at the Museum of Marrakech curated by Ross Douglas from Artlogic. This exhibition at AiM 2007 was one of the first major international exhibitions to offer an overview of Southern African Photography. South Africa has an extraordinarily rich photographic tradition and contemporary practice which has, in many respects, evolved out of documenting the years of apartheid. A new generation of young photographers has come to the fore in recent years, including Pieter Hugo, Zanele Muholi and Mikhael Subotzky, and their diverse approaches illustrate the rapid evolving of South African photography. Increasingly South African photographers are also working further afield in Africa, recently Hugo’s iconic series The Hyena and Other Men, taken in Nigeria, counter the isolation of South Africa that prevailed during the apartheid years.

Image by Pieter Hugo, Mallam Galadima Ahamadu with Jamis

AiM 2009 promises even more and is set to open on Thursday 19th November – Save the date!
For the 3rd Edition of the AiM Festival the principal exhibition will be curated by Abdellah Karroum (L’appartement 22, Rabat) at the Museum of Marrakech.
The literary programme will be organized by Simon Prosser (Publishing Director, Hamish Hamilton & Penguin) and the cinema programme will be put together in partnership with ESAV (School of Cinema & Visual Arts) under the direction of Vincent Melilli, Alan Yentob and Oscar-winning director John Boorman.