Ali Hobbs is a filmmaker whose work moves fluidly from behind the lens into contemporary art. She focuses on the physical and often political dimensions of embodied experience, using film, sound, and image to explore what is felt as much as what is seen.

Rooted in an early fascination with expanded cinema and abstract animation, Ali is interested in how image inhabits space, encounters its audience, and is shaped by the physical experience of its making. Her early work Transmission, a series of abstract films were projected across The Lux Gallery’s large Electric Windows and out into Hoxton Square, London (2000) This exploration later evolved into The Long Walk (2006), a seven-and-a-half-hour film shot continuously by Ali while walking in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains, creating a fully immersive durational work rooted in the physical act of filming. The final film was exhibited at its full length in public spaces around the world over five years, in sites ranging from Trafalgar Square in London, the UN Building in Brussels to Grand Central Station and finally The Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York (2012).

Ali continued this socially rooted practice in To Begin (2009), a 24-minute film made in southern Ethiopia that brings forth women’s voices and the rhythm of collective labour. Exhibited on large screens across UK city centers and arts venues, the film extends her commitment to observation and shared experience, while her written and photographic work reflects a parallel interest in human connection and place.

Recent commissions include short film Hibiscus Rising with artist Yinka Shonibare CBE RA, exhibited at The Tetley Art Gallery in Leeds and The Stephen Friedman Gallery in London (2024), and 15 minute film Hands of We Will Sing, following the work of internationally acclaimed artist Ann Hamilton and curators June Hill and Jen Hallem, for Hamiltons major work We Will Sing at Salts Mill, Northern England as part of Bradford 2025: UK City of Culture and Arts Council of England.

Alongside her independent artistic practice, Ali has curated art exhibitions and events, she made award winning short films for organisation’s and museums, taught experimental animation and cinema at Bedford Collage of Art, and documentary production at Leeds Trinity University and Leeds Becket University, she has also has worked at a senior level in documentary and factual broadcast over the last 15 years.

Ali is currently developing new work in collaboration with Ann Hamilton.