Ali Kazma

Ali Kazma is a filmmaker whose work explores a fascination with the actions of work and labor enacted by human bodies. Many of his works capture the minute specializations of a range of professions, performed by people who have developed a knack for their task; over the course of his career, Kazma has filmed a taxidermist, studio ceramicist, brain surgeon, factory worker in a blue jeans assembly line, watch repairman, butcher, and many others. His most famous and ambitious work to date is a seven-channel film titled O.K. (2010), studying the stupendously fast hands of a notary stamping stacks of papers. For Kazma, processes of work, particularly those that have involved mechanical repetition or artisanal hand labor, are related to national and global issues of production, commerce, and social organization.