Maria Vilkovisky and Ruthie Jenrbekova (Kreolex zentre)

“Hum Bom!” is an antiwar poem that Allen Ginsberg wrote about the Vietnam War and revised two decades later when US forces entered Iraq during the Gulf War. Claims that Saddam Hussein was developing “the bomb” were already afloat then, eventually serving the United States as justification for invading Iraq again in 2003. Today, Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump use their own version of this playbook, waging a short-lived bombing campaign against Iran’s nuclear program. Maria Vilkovisky and Ruthie Jenrbekova present their rendition of “Hum Bom!” as a rapid-fire duet, adding a dimension of self-critical humor to the poem and opening it up to new interpretations.

Later in the festival, the artists from the Kreolex zentre also create a program titled Tribute to the Unknown with their own poetry and music about war, repression, and resistance at the herbstcafé.

The Kreolex zentre was founded as a long-term, parainstitutional project in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in 2012. The fictional cultural institution builds upon diasporic traditions, develops inclusive aesthetics, and promotes queer cosmopolitics. Its founders and members are the poetess, musician, performance artist, and curator Maria Vilkovisky (1971, Almaty, Kazakhstan) as well as the artist, researcher, and cultural organizer Ruthie Jenrbekova (1973, Almaty, Kazakhstan). Both live in Almaty and Vienna.