Collective Amnesia, an anthology of poems published in 2017, is a questioning of South Africa’s history, an examination of patriarchy, racism, and gender-based violence – and it took Koleka Putuma on an international reading tour. With her latest work Hullo, Bu-bye, Koko, Come In, the young poet reacts to success and reflects on her position as a Black artist in White institutions, asking: ‘Why are you always hijacking our narratives with your gaze?’ With their powerful language, her texts examine the precarious proximity of hyper-visibility and disappearance, being swallowed up when one’s voice is hijacked and bought: ‘europe asks if it can touch my hair / backspace / europe touches my hair’. Together with artists from Cape Town, Putuma creates a musical-performative reading of her new poems for the Wiener Festwochen, radically questioning the points of view between audience and performers.