Adam Benmakhlouf and Tako Taal Announced as Programmers for AMIF 2020

Artists Moving Image Festival 2019 programmed by Emmie McLuskey, Ima-Abasi Okon and Kimberley O’Neill. Image courtesy of LUX Scotland. Photography by Matthew Arthur Williams.

LUX Scotland and Tramway are pleased to announce the programmers for the 9th edition of the annual Artists’ Moving Image Festival (AMIF 2020). This year’s festival will be programmed by artist, educator, writer and programmer Adam Benmakhlouf and artist, filmmaker and programmer Tako Taal.

For AMIF 2020, Adam and Tako will develop parallel programmes extending from their interests, allowing for unexpected moments of overlap. Adam and Tako will undertake a research residency at Cove Park to develop their AMIF programme in September 2020.

I’m excited to form a programme faithful to the rich variety of experimentation and transgression that take place under the unruly category of artists’ moving image.” – Adam Benmakhlouf

I’m looking forward to working alongside Adam and planning for a festival, it is an exciting prospect at this moment.” – Tako Taal

Supported by Screen Scotland’s festival fund, dates for AMIF and further announcements will follow later in the year.

Adam Benmakhlouf works as an artist, educator, writer and programmer. Committedly manifold, Adam’s practice includes experimental sound production, installation, painting, community organising and critical writing. Their work sensitively counters the underrepresentation and undervaluing of queer and anti-colonial lifestyles, labour, communities and knowledges.

Their work was acquired in 2018 by the Glasgow Museum collections and in 2019 they were commissioned to create a major new work for the Edinburgh Art Festival. Their writing has been included in Art Monthly, Frieze and The Skinny – where Benmakhlouf has served as the Art Editor for five years. In 2021, they will present a new solo exhibition in Glasgow’s CCA Intermedia Gallery.

Tako Taal is an artist and programmer. She was a 2019 RAW Academy fellow at RAW Material Company, Dakar and a Committee Member at Market Gallery, Glasgow, 2016 – 18.

At stake in her artistic practice are the psychic structures of colonial relations, and the question of how vivid they remain in the present. Her work has been presented at Tramway, Glasgow [online] Glasgow Short Film Festival, Glasgow Women’s Library, Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival, LUX Moving Image, London and Grand Union, Birmingham.

Artists Moving Image Festival

LUX Scotland and Tramway’s annual Artists’ Moving Image Festival (AMIF) was established in 2012 to provide a platform for the discussion and presentation of artists’ moving image, showcasing forms of production and research alongside screenings and discursive events. AMIF 2020 is presented and produced as a collaboration between LUX Scotland and Tramway, funded by Screen Scotland’s festival fund.

For more information about previous iterations of the festival, click here.