guerilla gallery: Cape Town Under: a review

Just over a week after flashfloods hit the Cape, guerilla gallery staged a sound art intervention in the historical stormwater tunnels that run under the city's skin. The weather turned just in time: a strong but manageable water flow formed a sonorous backing track to the lyrical tones of Pauline Theart's voice, which she projected in a live performance from the depths to echo into public space above. Good weather meanwhile let passersby get drawn in for a closer glance at these usually invisible spaces through manhole interfaces above. The tunnels were built hundreds of years ago first as canals and then enclosed and are now paved over by streets.

This collaborative work, 'Cape Town Under: The Third Voice', was conceived and curated by Kim Gurney as part of a broader project called LAND, organised by the Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts at UCT. It effectively aimed to briefly turn the tunnels into a musical instrument of sorts as a lone voice animated them with an hour-long endurance lullaby sung at access interfaces. The song was stripped of words to evoke a common referent and to help Theart improvise with the tunnel the 'third voice' through echoes and refrains in a kind of co-authorship with the site. She repeated the performance at three different sites over two days.

With special thanks to our tunnel operators who handled underground logistics - Matt Weisse and Gresham Chibwaz - as well as City Roads & Stormwater, The Castle's management and Gipca's support that together helped make this project possible.

Images below by Marguerite Townley-Johnson, except where indicated. For more information, visit the dedicated project website: http://capetownunder.withtank.com

Site 1: The Castle, Strand Street trapdoor interface (22 November)