Through landscape, movement and observation, these films explore perception and our relationship with place. Emerging from walking and encounter, they ask what it means to belong, and whether seeing through another's eyes reveal new ways of being in the world.
THE LONG WALK
Unfolding over seven and a half hours, The Long Walk follows local women as they walk to collect water in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains.
Filmed continuously, Ali immersed herself to reveal the extraordinary endurance required to survive amid civil war and the threat of personal violence.
First presented publicly on a 30-foot LED screen in Trafalgar Square 2006 it was accompanied by Hilary Benn - then Secretary of State for International Development, London Mayor Ken Livingstone and WaterAid CEO Dame Barbara Frost.
The work then went on to be exhibited on large screens around the world including the UN Building in Brussels, Union Station in Washington DC, Victoria City Centre Australia, Grand Central Station in New York, the Eden Project Cornwall and Glastonbury Festival in the UK where it was shown for five consecutive years.
Its final screening took place in 2012 at the Cathedral of St John the Divine New York, as part of an evening of witness organised by the Magnum Foundation and accompanied by a live orchestra
To Begin is a 30-minute film shaped by conversation and the continuous rhythm of walking. The work seeks to capture the physical and emotional weight of essential labour, led by voices that honour women’s resilience.
Filmed in a small village in Konso, the film emerges from a community rebuilding after severe floods that destroyed crops and contaminated water sources, triggering a cholera outbreak.
The final film was exhibited on large public LED screens across five UK cities Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford and Manchester shared civic spaces. The film was later donated to WaterAid for ongoing screening use at events around the world.
TO BEGIN
TRANSMISSION
Inspired by the experimental cinema of Len Lye and Stan Brakhage, Ali's early 16mm films explored the material possibilities of analogue filmmaking through hand-drawn imagery, experimental typography, and natural materials applied directly to the film surface.
These early works established a fascination with the connections between humans and also with other species that continues to inform her practice today.
Projected onto the large electric window of Lux Gallery in Hoxton Square London (2000), the abstract animations were visible both within the exhibition space and out onto the city at night, dissolving the boundary between inside and out.
