Phil Collins they shoot horses: a disco dance marathon by Phil Collins

dance
Hello Darkness
they shoot horses

Young bodies crossed by euphoria and exhaustion,
desire and resistance, as time stretches
until it becomes a physical and political ordeal.

Filmed in Ramallah in 2004 during the Second Intifada,
they shoot horses is a video installation
that follows an eight-hour dance marathon,
as time stretches until it becomes a physical and political ordeal.

Today, as violence against the Palestinian population is consumed in real time on global screens and reduced to statistical figures, the bodies at the center of they shoot horses reassert themselves as irreducible presences.

Not numbers, not masses, but singular lives that demand to be seen, remembered, and recognized.

Between ritual gesture and exhaustion, voice and silence, this evening shapes Hello Darkness as a descent into a zone where darkness is not only annihilation, but a fragile space of resistance, imagination, and political possibility.

 

they shoot horses
dance and rituals of resistance:
a disco dance marathon by Phil Collins
is part of Hello Darkness 2026

BASE’s public program: a project of research, experimentation, and cultural production that invites us to consider darkness as a fertile space for possibility, relationship, and transformation.

Through a rich and layered calendar of events, performances, talks, participatory practices, and listening sessions, HELLO DARKNESS brings visual arts, design, music, theory, technologies, and community practices into dialogue, positioning itself as an open public space capable of welcoming artists, researchers, and communities experimenting with alternative forms of cultural production.

Bio

Phil Collins is a visual artist, filmmaker, community organizer, and educator who lives between Berlin and Wuppertal. His internationally recognized work moves across art, politics, and popular culture, taking on different forms—from film to photography, from installations to performative events—to foreground everyday experiences and voices that are often ignored or silenced. Across geographies, genders, classes, and identities, his practice is guided by an ethics of connection and solidarity in the ongoing struggle for social justice and collective liberation.

Credits
Phil Collins
they shoot horses, 2004
Courtesy Shady Lane Productions, Berlin
Duration: 463 minutes
Featuring: Amal, Hussein, Maher, Mohammad, Noora, Sarah, Tamer, Yasmin, Ziad
Filmed, produced and directed by Phil Collins
Remastered in Berlin, 2024
Producer: Siniša Mitrović
Sound mix: Jochen Jezussek
Restoration and re-edit: Stefan Gohlke, Karla Maria Davis
Colour grading: Stefan Engelkamp
Postproduction facility: Concept AV
Remastering of they shoot horses has been made possible through support from BAK
basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht.
Special thanks: Jack Persekian, Issa Freij, Iman Hammouri, David Codling,
Al Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art (East Jerusalem), Popular Art Centre (Ramallah),
Orlando Maaike Gouwenberg, Maria Hlavajova, and Ringo
  • Duration 8 ore
  • Doors opening at H19

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