The Mother City Queer Project (MCQP) is an annual costume party held during Cape Town’s December festive season. Each year, attendees dress according to a chosen theme, presenting their outfits on the pink carpet before moving through a series of dance floors featuring local and international performers. Since its beginnings, MCQP has expanded significantly in both scale and audience. What started as a more contained, community-driven gathering has developed into a widely attended event, drawing participants from across Cape Town, the broader South African context and international visitors. This shift, from an underground celebration to a commercially recognised and broadly accessible event, can be traced in part through the changing venues that have hosted MCQP over the past two decades.
Juhan Kuus attended the event regularly, returning year after year to photograph its participants. His work forms an ongoing visual record of MCQP, documenting not only the costumes and performances, but also the evolving presence and visibility of Cape Town’s queer community within a public and celebratory space.
Archival Value
Being part of the Juhan Kuus archive, this work holds a unique value. It captures a specific event, but also something less obvious, the feeling of people coming together and creating their own space.
At Gallery F, this body of work sits between documentary and archive. It gives insight into a moment in time, but it also still feels relevant when you look at it today.
