Phil Collins: they shoot horses

Ulster Presents and Outburst Queer Arts Festival mark the 175th Anniversary of the Belfast School of Art in a collaboration with one of its most acclaimed graduates, featuring two major works - Mixtape #1 and they shoot horses.

We invite you to join us for a special twentieth anniversary presentation of the newly restored and remastered video installation they shoot horses, one of the most widely acclaimed works from Phil Collins’ multifaceted practice which traverses the turbulent territories between performance and moving image.

Referencing the 1935 novel They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, which tells the story of gruelling dance competitions as a form of entertainment during the Great Depression, they shoot horses was a disco dance marathon organised in 2004 with a group of young people in Ramallah, Palestine during the Second Intifada. Filmed in real time over the course of eight hours, the dancers pass through unfolding stages of elation, joy, fatigue, exhaustion, and endurance to a soundtrack of pop, rock and dance hits from the 1960’s on. In today’s image-saturated society, the trajectory between the pain of others and its globalised consumption has been infinitely streamlined – from the utter devastation of an entire lifeworld in Gaza direct to one’s smartphone in a matter of seconds.

'Against such dehumanisation of Palestinian lives, the dancers in they shoot horses appear both as young people anywhere on a night out and distinctly individual. Speaking to both the hardships and the resilience of living under the decades-long illegal occupation by the state of Israel, they shoot horses centres dancing as an act of resistance in the face of the daily atrocities, and as a fragile yet inextinguishable anticipation of liberation to come.'

We invite you to the Black Box to dance, talk, gather, and experience the full eight hours of this vital work, showing in Northern Ireland for the first time, or come join us at any stage of the event to dance and share in resistance and hope.

Remastering of they shoot horses has been made possible through support from BAK basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht.

Donations welcome at the event for alQaws for Sexual & Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society, a grassroots Palestinian LGBTQ+ community group.

BIOGRAPHY

Phil Collins is a visual artist, filmmaker, community organiser, and educator who lives in Berlin and Wuppertal. He is internationally renowned for a socially engaged practice that addresses the intersections of art, politics and popular culture. Across geographies, ethnicities, languages, genders, sexualities, and social classes, Collins’ approach is guided by an ethos of connection and a sustained engagement with the local context.