To spark new thinking. To hear perspectives. For inclusion, connexion, and learning. Together.
Networking casually for professionals in Phnom Penh.
Meet new people. Discover the things you have yet to find out about, because that’s what happens when we go and see. Max 4.
Register for The Third Place on Eventbrite. Here is a link.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-third-place-tickets-382919160517
Get to know team members of Atelier S P A C E Phnom Penh. They will host a real life meetup in that city.
Here is the registration information.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/here-comes-the-dance-tickets-347732265567
Thanks.
Design Kompany will be hosting a mini-popup zine festival in Phnom Penh on 21 July. It will be in real life at a special location we have discovered, near Russian Market.
Book a ticket for the zinemaking workshop, to make a zine with Atelier S P A C E Phnom Penh on the day. Here is a link.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/international-zine-day-mini-festival-tickets-369838977337
Why 21 July? It is International Zine Day.
What does that mean?
Studies conducted by Barnard College Zine Library in New York City show that there are at least 138 libraries in the United States that have an extensive collection of zines. Zines and independently published titles appeal to younger people and draw crowds to the libraries. Zines are not a brand new concept, and they have been around for almost a hundred years. Just like books, zines also foster communities. It’s a great medium for readers and writers to come together without having to worry about book sales and profits. International Zine Month was started in 2009 by Alex Wrekk, creator of Brainscan Zine. Source: National Today on International Zine Month
I love zines. I asked if I could come to Finland to be part of an artist residency there to make a summer’s worth of them. And I did.
Here is the popup show.
Relaxed and informal, that’s my style.
So fun.
Special thanks to Paavo Heinonen for noticing my zines and then also for inviting Atelier S P A C E to participate at the Oulu Arts Festival. Also to our host, Kahvila Tuokio. Here’s a picture or two of our popup zinemaking atelier, that year in August, too.
Even more fun.
Zinemaking and popups just get better and better.
I wish I could say that I made zine popups everywhere I went through the next few years, consecutively, but it’s a crowdfunded effort and not easy to pull off. So, I waited until I found the gumption to keep it up and then, this came into shape, next.
Fast forward to 2021. It wasn’t possible to host a real life event in July in Saigon, as there was a big lockdown for four months.
Plus no one I knew or talked to or had any contact with really cared about zines, or the purpose of them. Most people just wanted to work and ignore anything that threatened the status quo, I felt, and me existing and me having a zinemaking agenda just really wasn’t a thing that could fly. Easily. Or well. Except, it somehow did. This was amazing, and I will have a chance to tell you about how it went, when we meet in real life someday at one of the new popups, I hope.
Atelier S P A C E Saigon’s art director was photographer-chef Van Tran.
In November 2021, Atelier S P A C E made this: A photo show, a popup! Meeting in real life was out of the question. Still, we did host a popup as soon as the movement restrictions lifted. Very socially distanced.
Photos + installation by Van Tran. // VT 2021
Through the 20 months I was there, we did some once-off issues of the zine S P A C E, too. With Saigon-based Uyen Vu (‘Glamour Labour’), writer Quan Nguyen (‘Roads’, ‘Bittersweet’), and UK-based poet-artist Ilyas Kassam (‘Street Museums’).
Their stories were part of the collection of weekly issues that are now in our archives. Current issues are here.
The goal for me with S P A C E was to invite, and include. Seeing who comes, but not forcing it. All of this was supported by donations. See the story unfolding at the crowdfunding page.
Here is a link.
https://chuffed.org/project/spacethezine
Tuesday’s issue of S P A C E, DK’s weekly e-mag, will be ‘In the Third Place.’
In which I’ll write down what we have gathered from the goal of showing up, meeting regularly, at the same place, monthly, since I got back to Cambodia in November. Some of the time, not all of the time, there is magic.
9 July | The Third Place. Max 4. Tickets >
I must have reached out to 45 people over the course of six months. Since I returned to Phnom Penh, I figured it would be a good idea to reach out and see if I could network my way to finding people who were new here, this year. Maybe new energy is just what I need, I thought, after 20 months in solitude (See my book, Solitude, Kismuth Books / 2021). So I did what I do when I show up in a new city. Networked online.
Mostly LinkedIn, this time. I have given up on twitter. My personal account was deleted years and years ago and my @designkompany one is private. I quit facebook in 2014. I lost my passwords to all the other things that used to be hip and cool and fun in 2006ish.
I do have Discord but that is just to talk to one person. Which makes sense. I have Zalo for three people. And that’s it, me and my social media ‘contacts.’ Haha. Simple is good, for me. Speaking of which, there are just four spots for each edition of The Third Place. One is mine, so I have three tickets. It’s advance bookings so I don’t have to bother with dealing with cash on the day which is awkward since I don’t have a phone to take payments, and I think that is what people do now.
THE THIRD PLACE. To be continued. We’ll try this. Meeting on the 9th of the month in July… It’s advance bookings. Get tickets.
Thank you for the good conversations on systems, change, management, lateral thinking and more. Especially to LW and QN. Will see you at the next thing, the next time Ecosystems rolls into shape, organically.
