Arts in Marrakech International Festival
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Arts in Marrakech (AiM) is a bi-annual Moroccan cultural festival. It serves as the Marrakech International Literary and Arts festival. It was first held in September 2005. It was founded by local businessman Abel Damoussi, artist Danny Moynihan, curator Vanessa Branson and impresario Pablo Ganguli who also runs Liberatum.
AiM in its inaugural year contained a special prgramme to forge British-Moroccan cultural relations. The festival which was graced by a great number of prolific authors, eminent artists and high profile media delegates celebrated the importance of artistic/cultural relations between the UK and Morocco, North Africa/Arab world.
It was the first ever international festival to have taken place in Marrakech focusing on art and literature. A huge art exhibition jointly curated by Vanessa Branson and Prue O’Day at the Musee de Marrakech featuring more than 60 artists including Sarah Lucas and Gavin Turk, some of them Turner prize winners such as Grayson Perry, was the main highlight of AiM this year. Most of the artists were highly acclaimed from Europe. AiM also hosted a large scale Moroccan art exhibition at the Bahia Palace and several other art exhibitions featuring the work of Moroccan artists at art galleries all over the city.
AiM welcomed a rich mix of thinkers, poets, journalists, festival directors, authors, artists, diplomats, business-people and cultural commentators from diverse backgrounds. The festival proved to be an eclectic gathering of great minds who descended upon Marrakech to discuss art, world cultures and creative ideas and we intend to develop the festival into an exceptional, highly stimulating and significant international art and literary festival featuring a fantastic programme of diverse literary and artistic events.
Pablo Ganguli is directing AiM 2007.
AiM 2005 Participants and Special Guests
Sir Richard Branson, entrepreneur
Annie Lennox, entertainer
Antony Gormley, sculptor
Charbal Daghuer, author
Sandra Hebron, Director of the London Film Festival
Ahmed El Madini, novelist
Ekow Eshun, artistic director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London
Esther Freud, novelist
Sa'di Youssef, poet
Mohammed Bennis, poet
Biddy Brett-Rooks, British Consul General, Casablanca
Mobarak Rabii, author
Geordie Greig, former Sunday Times literary editor and Tatler editor
Hari Kunzru, author
Francis Upritchard, painter
Hassan Hilmy, professor
Yassin Adnan, poet
Shamuel Shimon, author and publisher
Hanif Kureishi, author
Mahi BineBine, painter and author
Mehdi Akhrif, author
Jane Johnson, author and publishing director of HarperCollins Fiction
Catherine Lockerbie, director of Edinburgh International Book Festival
Deborah Moggach, novelist
Simon Prosser, Publishing director, Hamish Hamilton List, Penguin
Alexandra Pringle, Editor in Chief of Bloomsbury
International Media Delegation
Boyd Tonkin, Literary Editor of the Independent
Caroline Phillips, freelance for The Independent
Rosie Millard, News Statesman/The Guardian
Stephanie Theobald, Harpers & Queen
Toby Lichtig, Associate Editor of the TLS (Times Literary Supplement)
Kate Bernard, Features Editor of Tatler
Camilla Long, Associate Features Editor, Tatler
Sam Leith, Telegraph Literary Editor
Richard Brooks, Sunday Times Arts Editor
Fiona Dunlop, The Financial Times
Roger Tatley, Modern Painters
