The Institute for the Readjustment of Clocks, Turkey
Emre Baykal, curator
Jean Factory, 2008
11’40”
Colour video, sound
Courtesy the artist and Francesca Minini, Milan
Ali Kazma captures the work at a jeans factory, an amazingly complicated mode of mass production is utilized to provide a protective and comfortable shelter for the body. This video, one of eight chapters in the series Obstructions to the Second Law, brings the creation of the global cultural codes of fashion to the foreground. In his works, Kazma enters other places of production, repair and maintenance, such as a surgery room in a hospital, the workshop of a clockmaster in Dolmabahçe Palace, a steel factory in an industrial area near Istanbul, a slaughterhouse, a jean factory, places of production which are not visible in our daily life.
Ali Kazma was born in 1971 in Istanbul. He is a video artist, graduate of the New School in New York City. In 2000, he returned to Istanbul, where he still resides. His videos raise fundamental questions about the meaning and significance of human activity and labor and the meaning of economy, production, and social organization.