S P A C E is a weekly zine.
We share it by email with a handful of subscribers.
I’m Dipika Kohli, and I make S P A C E.
What we cover
I’m covering art, design and creative collaboration that works and why. I also know that sometimes it’s best not to push collaboration and I try to talk about that, too. It’s for people who are generally interested in these things and let me write what I think they’ll be interested in, very small subscriber base, but good conversations happen in forums.
Like all of my projects, I try things, I fail, I change, I reinvent, I relaunch. This is how Design Kompany grows. The zine is the product of all those shifts and insights.
Why I do this
I’ve been curious about the shifts in the media landscape in general from the time I was in newspapers in Seattle in 2005, having started this blog the next year.
Years after, I co-hosted a tweetup, ‘Media’, by initiating the idea and inviting a lot of people to make it happen with me. It was for people to discuss and meet each other in person to discuss further what ‘media’ even is and how it was changing. One of the groups who came on board to collaborate with me was the Independent Weekly, a news outlet in Raleigh-Durham NC, who gave us time and sponsorship. More than 400 people came from around the Triangle (which is what we call Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, out there) to what turned out to be a public event with this very large after-conference-party vibe. ‘I need to go and meet someone I haven’t met yet’ was how I recall it, the comment from someone on the list I was meeting at reception who saw the list and all the ‘@’ handles of the days when twitter was on and twitter was good. That was it. We needed to have this so people could connect with each other and enjoy all the other layers of communication: eye contact, nonverbal communication, body language, laughter, and that ever-important one, space. To hear and see. To see and hear. Mutually.
Though I really enjoyed that, it was difficult to have fruitful conversations at that scale, so not long after that I hosted ‘The State of Publishing’ with tickets and panelists and that was quite extraordinary. I also hosted the roundtable salon, ‘Make: What is the creative process, who uses it? What changes as a result?’ with guests and panelists I found who were in various fields to talk together about this topic. It was good. It was free. It was also a little too big for my taste. During and after the pandemic, I began to host very small gatherings instead of these and I think I came to understand I rather prefer it. The parlor dialogue. The dinner party at home. The casual meetup at a cafe where it’s not too big, too loud or too casual (or too serious).
Because interviewing people and understanding firsthand where things are is so valuable to me, I make S P A C E to explore and keep inquiring into topics of interest to people who care about the creative process. For more involvement, I host something else, called the Cojournal. It’s nice to have people there who have been opening and sharing, but also, whom I’ve known for a while now so I have the chance to draw them out, if you know what I mean. Here is the link to that, if curious. http://kismuth.com/october
My new work, now that I’ve learned the tools and practiced a lot how to design and host a great conversation space for people who opt in, is to keep circling in a handful at a time to each of the ongoing circles so that we have freshness and keep it real, instead of get complacent and too cozy in our ‘group.’ That is probably the single biggest thing that matters to me: variety of perspectives.
Is S P A C E for you?
To help you get an idea of if the zine is right for you and your organization read ‘Oriah’s invitation,’ below. If the sentiment here resonates, you’ll likely enjoy S P A C E and my other, related conversation spacemaking projects.
Thanks,
Dipika
The Invitation
By Oriah Mountain Dreamer
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain! I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty even if it is not pretty, every day and if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the moon “Yes!”
It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else fails away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in empty moments.
How to get S P A C E
Set up your subscription to S P A C E [$] with this link…
https://buy.stripe.com/8wMeYccaw5jW7AcdRe
…or this one:
https://chuffed.org/project/finding-stories-for-my-zine-on-the-road-in-shikoku-kyushu