(Un)veiling

Cape Town
Videographer: Mandilakhe Yengo
Performer: Alude Mahali
Poet: Gary Cummiskey
2'51’’
2009

(Un)veiling explores voyeurism and the power of the gaze. In the midst of the bustle of constrained living spaces in the city, privacy becomes a necessity but isn’t always a given. The city has eyes; it covers and uncovers and someone is always watching- hidden or revealed. Using the poem “Corner Café” by Gary Cummiskey, as its premise, (Un)veiling looks at the fine line between seeing, being seen and not seeing.

Garage

by Gary Cummiskey

Knock back on the counter
Your superstitious coins,
the couple in the car opposite's
screaming, she might
pull a gun on him. The
leaves lift gently on the breeze
WE'LL DISINFECT ETERNITY
The smiling petrol attendant's
lost in an ancestral
hallucination.

Corner cafe

by Gary Cummiskey

I take you
to the corner cafe.
It is empty
so we slip down behind the counter
and start to fuck.
Afterwards,
when we are getting up off the floor,
we see the owner lying in the
doorway, dead.