ALI HOBBS

UK BASEd filmmaker and arist

Ali is currently in residence at the Ilkley Arts Attic Studio and was selected for the international Air, Sea and Soil: Soundings and Surroundings artist residency programme in Orkney, Scotland (June 2026), developing new work that explores the relationship between sound, place, and immersive experience.

She has recently been awarded funding from Arts Council England to develop a new sound-based moving-image work in collaboration with internationally acclaimed artist Ann Hamilton and the Applied Psychoacoustics Laboratory at University of Huddersfield.

  • Grounded in observation, immersion, and physical process, Ali’s practice explores ideas and lived experience through sound, materials and moving image.

    Ali’s projects often emerge through extended acts of making rather than pre-defined outcomes. Early work included abstract animations projected across the electric windows of Lux Gallery and into Hoxton Square, London.

    This enquiry developed into The Long Walk, a seven-and-a-half-hour installation filmed in the Nuba Mountains, Sudan. Conceived through bodily immersion, the work preserves the full duration of the walk, allowing time, landscape and physical limitsto shape the piece. It has been exhibited internationally in public spaces including Trafalgar Square, The Eden Project, Glastonbury Festival, Grand Central Station, Union Station and the Cathedral of St John the Divine.

    Ali  went on to make To Begin, a 30-minute film shot in Southern Ethiopia, centring women’s voices, the sound and physical rhythms of labour and shared presence. This work was exhibited simultaneously on five large outdoor screens across five UK cities.

    Alongside her own practice, Ali has undertaken short film commissions, including collaborations with other artists that translate and extend their practices. These works sit between documentation and interpretation, retaining her focus on presence and lived experience while responding to the distinct language of each artist.

    She has built a career in broadcast Televsion and delivering ambitious creative and cultural projects across contemporary art, museums and publicly funded programmes bringing together production teams, artists, and institutions. She has also produced films for brands, heritage organisations and educational programmes.

    Committed to widening access to the broadcast industry and the arts, Ali is a mentor and regularly speaks at schools and colleges. She has taught at Bedford College of Art, Leeds Beckett University and Leeds Trinity University.

  • ali@alihobbs.com