Tag: atelier space

Issue #86

A. Spaice

S P A C E | Đà Lạt • ‘Tìm Mình Trong Thế Giới’ is the next in our weekly e-zine series. It is set to release on Tuesday.

DK Director Dipika Kohli made the drawing on the cover this week. The drawing’s title is: Chúc Ngủ Ngon & Chào Buổi Sáng / Good Night & Good Morning.

A line artist for many years, Kohli has rekindled her old style of drawing by putting pencil to page again. This [cover] drawing is part of a series of more than fifty new pencil and colored pencil works. These were created in quiet moments, on the spot, in several cafes and brightly lit atelier spaces she discovered while in ‘The Great Lockdown’ (so far) in Đà Lạt, Việt Nam. Kohli had plenty of time alone to write, draw, and reflect, whilst also working on a new book, End of the Rainbow (Kismuth Books / forthcoming 2020).

This  effort has come out of the slowing down, a natural outcome  resulting from the first and second waves of covid19-related measures to maintain social distancing, and self-isolating, in the era of this, the Great Lockdown, so far. Kohli has been in the Central Highlands since April—and continues to discover and make. In bursts, that is. And only when inspired by the chance encounter and surprisingly enriching dialogues with the people in the places where she goes. S P A C E is a weekly zine. It is created by Design Kompany, which was started in 2004 in Seattle and today is based in Phnom Penh. DK are intrigued about how to design the space for an aesthetic moment to happen, on the spot, for unexpected and random connexion, with the people, objects, and places where they go, in S P A C E.

You can order this week’s issue.

Here’s a link.

http://gum.co/space-dalat-tmttg

Thanks! ;)

Loading…

What DK does best is this

Dipika Kohli

I’m finally going to write about what I do for work.

It’s taken me a little while to figure out what I wanted to focus on, for 2020-2025. I have this five-year plan. They always ask you that in interviews, right? Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

I just went back and thought about all those five-year milestone moments, when I’d reflect, and find out what it is that the journeys have taught me. ‘Say Hello to DK,’ ‘Experiments in N+1’, ‘Practicing the Unknown, Uncertain and Different,’ and ‘Design + Discovery’ have, so far, been five-year blocked themes.

(See examples of projects completed in each of these phases, they’re listed towards the end of this page.)

I am focusing on the next five years on another theme, which I’ll talk about now. ‘Creativity + Innovation.’

Creativity + Innovation

Why this? These are just buzzwords, right? Actually we’ve come to a place where they can’t be, anymore.

This is why.

The rest of this post is at my personal site.

It’s this page: https://dipikakohli.com/what-i-do-best-is-this/

DK: “My community, these days, more than ever, is ‘Papers'”

Dipika Kohli

‘What is it that you do to stay motivated to keep writing, DK?’

I work with a small group of no more than 4 at a time in a project I love called ‘Interactive Papers.’ We are going to open a new circle in August.

Conversations take place each week with a fresh writing prompt that is based on earlier dialogues, and things people share, and research that I do, personally. It’s fun; a week at a time, asynchronously and in the cloud.

 

Staying focused

Sometimes I get distracted and start googling things like ‘how to write a novel’ and ‘tips’ and these listicles come up and all this ‘bestseller’ stuff and people tooting their horns without realizing that a new piece, something that is innovative, that hasn’t been seen before, but could cut a new cloth and shapeshift a different paradigm, is not the kind of thing you write to a template, or a formula. So I immediately back out of those pages and go back to my solid relationships, in the e-circles of email, S P A C E, zoom chats, Dropbox, and ‘Papers’.

Why? Because I just… disagree with the internet ‘besticle’ shite. I made up ‘besticle,’ but you see what I mean, right? More, better, more gooder money I am so cool and I wrote 5069 books already and they are all so popular and they have all changed everyone’s lives, like everyone. Getter richer. (That’s what it sounds like, to me, reading these ‘pieces.’) Where is the ‘back’ button? Out, out, out. I’m different I guess. I write because I actually like relationships, communication, and most importantly, communicating such that a relationship can flourish into a wildly pure aesthetic of a quality human connexion. I guess that’s lofty and idealistic. So?

That’s what I like.

So I write where I write. In ‘Papers.’ I like the interactive components, in our different technological spaces. It adapts based on the inputs, like a fuzzy logic machine. I really do have more to say about this, but I’ll save it for those who opt-in, via an application.

Applications are open now for an August circle of no more than 4, for ‘Papers.’ I’m currently accepting applications through the end of July.

See what it is, at this link for ‘Papers’.

 

23 July | ‘Tìm mình trong thế giới’

A. SpaiceLeave a comment

It’s a small, real-life meet up for a max of 4. It’s also a mini-workshop. It’s on FB.

Here’s a link.

https://www.facebook.com/events/281855386383568/

Exact location to be shared by email, since you already know if you got the link to this page that I do not have a handphone.

Email me, so.

Thanks!

 

Ecosystems

Dipika Kohli

Today in real life.

I don’t know. It’s a long shot. But sometimes, remarkably, I actually do meet people through Eventbrite invites on the internet. One out of a hundred people I cross paths with are ‘my’ people. I think… I think I’m back ‘on’ with making invitations to this kind of maybe-you-can-just-show-up-and-meet-me jazz. Like ‘N‘. But… simpler. Way.

HT T. Thanks for that conversation, yesterday. Maybe see you at this?

You know the spot I’ll be at. The other details…

https://ecosystems-dalat.eventbrite.com

Issue #81

A. Spaice

This week’s issue is ready to share.

It’s called S P C | Sài Gòn • ‘Start with Something Simple’.

#81

About ‘SwSS’…

Trang Le’s story, ‘A Discovery of… Myself,’ is the lead story. It is in Vietnamese. One of the most sharply observing young people DK has met in a long time, it is a chronicling of the author’s experience slowly passing time in Đà Lạt, away from home. Two of her photographs showcasing the natural beauty in and around Đà Lạt are included, too. You’ll also find some quirky terrariums created by Dinh Ngô, who shared these images with DK for this issue after we happened to find them in real lfe. He, too, like Le, had found new ways to discover—in this case, a new creative pursuit—over the period of lockdown. Experimenting with making… terrariums led to a new outcrop of beginnings, it seems. The cover photograph and inside images give you an idea of the vibe.

Special thanks to Bích Ngọc, who translated into Vietnamese Dipika Kohli’s  short dialogue, ‘Phoneless,’ about a true encounter in real life in Ho Chi Minh City with someone who, like Kohli, professed he, too, does not have a phone.

How to order..

S P C | Sài Gòn • ‘Start with Something Simple’ is ready to order.

Here’s a link.

http://gum.co/space-saigon-swss

Thanks!

Loading…

An art of the moment

A. Spaice

Fascinating insights this week as I review all my notes, in one sitting (thank you, desk!) from a three-month period of time in one place. That is to say, DK did not move (naturally, right?) in March, April and May. Instead, we hunkered down in one point in the Central Highland of Vietnam.

Going to be sharing about the learnings, gleanings, insights and beautiful beginnings of extraordinary things, soon. In Papers.

It will be confidential, and only relevant to those who join in. That is, nothing is going to be put there if it’s not somehow part of the spheres of interest of those who join. Which is why it’s so fun. [deleted]

Papers is my online conversation space, now, pretty much exclusively.

And it’s also exclusive, just four guests at a time.

The point? A place to go to share ideas, bounce things off of others, and connect. Deeply, not trivially (as R. Pirsig put it so insistently, and endearingly, in Lila). Because we need this. We need quality conversation space and not just massive 1:many thingies.

I don’t really like 1:N. Partly why I’m not doing this blog so much, these days. I used to! Wow, did I ever. I blogged every day in 2006, I think. Jeez, though. That’s just a… lot of stuff… And I don’t feel like sharing now with the big vast internet. Most of it is a mess. Rather than nondescript ‘N’, I made Specific ‘N’, as in 16N, a project on hiatus. Had thought about doing a virtual version, but that’s just… anti-thematic to ‘N’. So I’ll just wait until I feel like it. If at all.

But what is the point of Papers you ask ? To help people realize their own projects. I think a lot of people stall [deleted]…. done; at least, that’s what I’ve seen. So I like to give people structure—a scaffolding—something to build onto. A formal form. I know how to do this, because of my past life in architecture and journalism and design and moving around the world on my two feet.

And I can point to things, say, ‘Why not try…’

It works.

If it didn’t, why would anyone join, anything, ever, that I do? Yet I really love that there are 600+ people in our FB community (sorry I haven’t been putting anything there, ever), or some 300 some on Instagram (ditto). Meaning… there are people around or who used to be around who wanted to know how DK could help.. them… accomplish stuff? I think… for me, that’s it. I make Papers to keep some conversations going, sure, but also, to help people figure out how to figure things out.

So those people (and I do invite quite carefully, mind), can  get places… so they can… ‘Break on Through!’…

Speaking of breakthroughs

Because I certainly have, using these methods, in my own work here at DK and at other things I’m up to, too. Yeah, and so, given all that, I’m ready to include a few more voices for July.

At the time of this writing, we have two spots, for July.

 

Gift issue

Anyone who applies *today* will get a free copy of this week’s issue of S P C.

It launches today !

It’s ‘Continuous Partial Attention!’

HT Michael Bridgett, Jr. Working with MB is a great pleasure for us, as always. And it starts with things like Papers, to get the ball rolling on getting more and more deep into these layers of connexion. We are filtering all he time, based on.. sincerity! What else matters, lol.

Papers | ‘Dear M’

Dipika Kohli

About a year ago at this time, you gave me a pen, M. It came up in a conversation a few weeks ago, about the ‘giving of the pen.’ It also featured in ‘Expanding Windows,’ where I did a live mini-theater re-enactment of that day when we were fated to cross paths, the stuff of this issue of S P C.

There were four people I talked about at Expanding Windows: you, R., C., and N. I’ve been in good touch with the others ever since parting ways with each of them, in recent months and weeks and even days, it’s like that, on the road. But you… where are you, how are you? Did you quit? I wonder. As you are the fourth corner of this very square Square of who inspired me most with Atelier S P A C E in 2017-2019 and why (new, different, changes, ‘the character realizes something’, etc), I wanted to post this. To let you know. In case you see it, that you are missed. I really do wonder about how you are there, now, and how you are faring. Hopefully safe, sound, and well.

If you want to know more about what I’m writing lately, I used the pen just today, and I can send you a picture of the text. Thanks for the great inspiration, once again. I hope you are doing the things you said you would, and if yes, cool, and if not, well, then I hope some of my new friends in your town came by your workplace to pester you about it. I said it would be cool with you. I hope I was right.

Dipika
PS Emailed you.

Reality & Trust

Dipika Kohli

‘Reality & Trust’ will take place in either Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City, in late June.

What’s real? Who decides? Let’s talk about it, offline.

REALITY & TRUST. What’s real? Who even knows, anymore. But let’s parse it out, in real life, together. The way we consume information now becomes how we read and experience and interact with each other. But I remember a different time. When you would walk into a place and see people like actually live-talking together with facial expressions and eye contact, with no dinging and ringing things in their pockets, just hanging out, maybe telling jokes? without having rehearsed them, hello, why do people do this, or just simply laughing out loud, and not being so overly concerned about ‘reactions.’

This was the other house plant that Susan loved to photograph, when she made her journey to the Northern European climates that offered that oh-so-perfect wan light. Read ALTIY >

 

EVOLUTIONS. In June 2017, I was in Hanoi and hosting a popup installation in real life that was called ‘N’ Hanoi: Narrative.

‘N’ happened in Hanoi on 27 June 2017

There were tickets. Limited seats. And, a *secret location*. Which I shared only after people committed to it. Why? Trust. The idea was, you didn’t quite know what was going to happen but you trusted enough in the concept (or me, if I met you in person) to show up on the day and say, ‘OK. Take me on a journey.’ It was beautiful. There’s even a selfie. Now, here we are in 2020, the exact same month, and let’s move on to Reality. Real life is great, and for me, the best channel for conversation and real connexion. The quality ones that I most enjoy. ‘Make what you wish existed’ is advice I got from Saleem Reshamwala, who has that pinned on his twitter, and I think for me these events are *it*.

HANOI OR SAIGON. Now I’m Vietnam. I have been, since February (guess why!), and I have two weeks left. Shall I come to Hanoi, or Saigon, and host a conversation salon for those of you who are reading this and saying, ‘Yeah, we need to discuss things in real life spaces with people whom we don’t aleady know?’ Right now I am a 12-28-hour bus ride away from either spot. But!, I will go there, if people are ‘on’ for this. I know, right? Random. Yet. I like it this way.

LOCATION. I’ll share the location of ‘Reality’ with registering guests *only*. Min 4. Max 8. Advance bookings only.If 4 people book, I’ll get the night bus from where I am and tell you where ‘Reality’ will be.✨✨✨✨ This event will take place either in Hanoi or Saigon. It just kinda depends on who says ‘yes’ first and confirms with a booking. Min 4. Max 8. Advance bookings only. Old school, keeping it real. Meet other people who appreciate showing-up-ness. Right? Crazy.

Why am I doing it like this? Well, you can read all about ‘N’ if you want a mini-manifesto on ‘The Culture of Maybe’. Note: I’ll refund any tickets 100%, for you if the city you book for isn’t as ‘in’ as the other one. Of course, I’ve also seen people travel for these. Distances like from Paris to London, once, and other times, too, but it’s really because they are already familiar with the kind of jam session DK makes space for. It’s not like anything else. You have to experience it, because I am not posting a ‘sell it to me’ glossy instagrammy piece of junk here. I’m posting… The Invitation…

Issue #47: S P A C E | Kärsämäki, ‘The Field and the Horizon”

Dipika Kohli

For this issue, DK’s creative director Dipika Kohli worked with A. Spaice and our newly budding creative team in Penang, Malaysia, in November, 2019.

Wrapping a year’s worth of reflections on the idea of growth, change, seedlings and new beginnings, it is a soft version of something that heretofore in our magazine has been rather geometric and angular, in style and attitude. Yet time and sharing, more and more, has opened us up a little more to ourselves, and to a very small section of our innermost hearts.

 

Quiet places

There, in the quietest places, something new is aloft. Seeds, seedlings and search for new grounds, fallow periods and more make their way into these pages, indirectly and perhaps abstractly, but with, we hope, a feeling that gives itself rather than asks you to pay attention to it.

Here’s a link:

http://gum.co/space-karsamaki-field

Thanks ;)

Loading…

Issue #45: S P A C E | Vilnius, ‘Partial Differential Equations’

Dipika Kohli

Experiments 

DK wrote a  very short new play, which is  is in today’s release of, Issue #45, S P A C E | Vilnius, ‘Partial Differential Equations.’

It has a title that looks like this:

4N

 

Innovations in the form

Writing lately on a particular topic, namely, ‘Trust the Process.’

It’s about how to find our way to more of the variety of philosophy that doesn’t get caught up in itself and make knots, but rather, smooths things in a way that lets us all have more fun. Together.

All the conversations so far have led to this, Issue #45:

S P A C E | Vilnius, ‘Partial Differential Equations.’

Here it is.

http://gum.co/space-vilnius

Thanks ;)

Order S P A C E | Vilnius, ‘Partial Differential Equations’…

Loading…