LET’S TALK ABOUT learning. How we discover, find, and make new connections. Ideas, shapes of thinking and the input that comes from places that might not be the ‘usual’ ones.
No more boring meetings: What are the containers that make great conversations *happen*?
Conversations that lead to better collaboration and better work? Those are important. Let’s not waste time. Let’s make things better, together.
Better and more enjoyable: that’s the key.
How do we design the S P A C E that lets fresh thinking flow?
Let’s consider. Let’s discuss.
Min 2. Max 6.
WHAT YOU’LL GET. DK will share very short introductions to design and lateral thinking methods, including:
Grice’s ‘Maxims of Conversation’
Six Thinking Hats, a method of opening dialogue.
The Open Space Technologies how-to.
This mini-conversation will be hosted by DK’s Dipika Kohli. She has delivered seminars at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill on the topic of Design Thinking, a series caled SELF as a 9-week experiential program at Stanford University, and for an architects circle in Seattle DK was invited to present, ‘Just Be You.’
Atelier S P A C E is a two-year roving popup zinemaking atelier. It’s a project of the boutique studio, Design Kompany (started in 2004 in Seattle – presently based in Phnom Penh). On the road since Sept. 2017 from: Battambang, Cambodia, Atelier S P A C E co-creates a weekly zine. This is done with people DK discovers on the spot, in the locations where the popup zinemaking workshops go. DK invite others to co-create the zines. So far, some of the places we’ve been to make zines with others in this way are: Sheffield, Helsinki, Hanoi, Berlin, Seattle, Kuala Lumpur, and Phnom Penh. Stop by. See what’s up. Be a part of the experience at Atelier S P A C E, where some of us will be on hand to write, print, collage and sew with some of you a fresh zine, to be made on the spot: S P A C E | Tokyo, ‘Osananajimi’. Learn more about DK’s Atelier S P A C E and couture zines at instagram.
S P A C E | Tokyo will be a ‘yomikai’ get-together for those who want to read what we create, together, at Atelier S P A C E | Tokyo.
Today, in S P A C E, we share S P A C E | Rovaniemi, ‘Arctic Circle.’ Discovery. Connexion. Recommencements. And starts. But most importantly: showing up for the I-don’t-even-know-what-it-is-yet.
‘I’m listening’
‘Arctic Circle’ is heavily inspired by a conversation that had begun in a southeast Asian locale, in autumn of 2016, and moved around in cyberspace before recommencing in the north of Finland almost exactly, if my calculations are accurate (and they’re only perfectly accurate 4.85% of the time) two years thence. A very important thread, for me,
I’ll refrain here from too much wordage, as is my unwieldy, cumbersome and ‘getting murky with communicating, DK’ habit. That’s why for this issue, I made a fresh commission. This one, a photo essay. ‘Arctic Circle’ is a set of images that are interpretations of what I had shared with BOSS.
Including, but not limited to: zines, bits of leaf, some twigs, a large wooden button, thin strips of the trunk of a birch, Queen Anne’s lace (pressed, flattened), black tissue paper, words, glyphs, and… um. Moss. (I was worried they wouldn’t let me pass through immigration with this last.) His photos turned out to be more than I could have put together in any kind of series myself: owing to the fact that the new and different emerged. Fresh eyes. Listening.
Read more about the way this story came into shape, in the first place, or get a copy of the issue, S P A C E | Rovaniemi, ‘Arctic Circle’ at either of these links at the end of this post.
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to Sanna Upola at KärsämäkiLibrary for challenging DK to make this set of writings from Finland more interesting than it could have possibly been without your input. Atelier S P A C E | Finland benefitted greatly from our conversations, for sure.
After, I met more helpful people briefly at an intriguing section of art books at Korundi Art Museum, and amidst all the great natural lighting flooding insets where I could probably have stayed for years, quietly writing and reading and musing about Art and Design and Architecture, at the Rovaniemi City Library.
Wow, the famous Finnish architect Alvar Aalto‘s design has exquisite sunken insets and exciting natural lighting. No wonder a handful of architecture students whom I asked about what they were doing observing and making notes and documenting strangers with photos were up to, at first a little skeptically, then more convivially, chatting them all up and asking not to be photographed while also inquiring about natural ventilation. They’d come all the way from Japan, made the trip, specially, to study it. Thanks also to Arktikum for press passes to help DK research and find context to make Atelier S P A C E | Rovaniemi.
And speaking of putting a thing together after contemplating it, here’s how to get the issue itself… ‘Arctic Circle…’ It’s free for collaborators and current members of S P A C E. Also available as a single issue download (USD $7). Click this pic to below to order it at our online store. Delivers instantly.
Philosophy is sometimes described as the conscious examination of life, so we humans can be aware enough of what surrounds us in order that we may make qualified decisions. By so doing, we can choose to exclude or include certain experiences or design our societies. Yes: design them, so that we (plants, animals, et al, too) can all live more pleasurably.
How DK are making S P A C E
In this issue, new photography from Brussels, taken by S P A C E art director Jānis Žguts, is paired with an essay by S P A C Eculture editor Michael Bridgett, Jr., and line artwork of Dipika Kohli that’s been curated by BOSS. It’s a collaboration that began loosely in 2016, at dk‘s conversation salons, ‘Rooftop Philosophy’ and ‘True Connexion,’ both held in Phnom Penh, and has evolved from the seed of a simple, open-format invitation: ‘Who wants to talk, in real life, together, about this, perhaps with other people we don’t yet know?’ (From there, new conversations about what philosophers invite us to mull over emerged, evolved, and expressed themselves in short bursts of extended query, or over monthslong quiet spaces where the team could reflect in permutations, both separately, together, and with others, too.) Such conversation spacemaking is exactly what S P A C E is designed to invite. •
Philosophy is sometimes described as the conscious examination of life, so we humans can be aware enough of what surrounds us in order that we may make qualified decisions. By so doing, we can choose to exclude or include certain experiences (or design our societies). Yes: design them, in other words, so we can all live more pleasurably.
In this issue, new photography from Brussels, taken by S P A C E art director Jānis Žguts, is paired with the line artwork of DK’s Dipika Kohli. It’s a collaboration that began in 2016, at theconversation salon, ‘Rooftop Philosophy,’ held in Phnom Penh, and has continued from what began as a simple question: ‘Who wants to talk about this with me?
‘Richness and complexity’ are one of the things we design for in S P A C E (ask me for my 7-point checklist if you are a member?), so it makes sense that from there, a journey of conversation and discovery about the things that philosophy invites us to mull over continued in both short bursts of extended query, or over monthslong quiet spaces where the team could reflect, both separately and with others, too.
Such conversation spacemaking is exactly what this zine is designed to invite. I
In fact, this zine is part of a series of art books,photozines, and creative nonfiction worksby international, collaborating teams at DK. Just underway since December 2018, the project will continue as long as people are engaged, curious, and joining our subscription list to say ‘yes, tell me more.’
Get to know us and others in S P A C E. You can learn more about S P A C E and how to be part of these online and real life conversation salons, as well as read the digital zines we are sharing every Tuesday, at our crowdfunding page.
CURRENTLY WRITING FROM Johor Bahru, in Malaysia. First time.
Never had a reason to stop here but as I’m due in Singapore very soon to host Atelier S P A C E next weekend, figured it was a good time to visit. Why not. Besides, I was getting really tired of being on my own: another first, for me, being fatigued with solo travel. Really strange. I think it has to do with the fact that I’ve only very recently discovered the joy of traveling with friends. I mean, like, for real. Mostly, what is exotic now about movement with people I know already is the conversation that progresses… which is what I miss, right now. Strange, this change.
I had always loved, loved, even lived for, journeying alone. Which is why I went to Finland for three months, to make the pictures in the zine, ‘The Book of Slow Moment,’ which I’ll tell you about shortly. But. But. But. There’s something… changing now… solo travel is different because people are not there to connect, they’re there to stay connected to what they already know and who they already know… which means, they’re closed to you… you are a random intruder into their scrolling. Which means you’re ‘weird,’ for wanting to strike up a conversation with a stranger. Yeah. So what I’m concluding is, and this is really a jolt, is that to them, I’m weird, to these people, who are on the road, supposedly. Not them. (Exception, S. That was cool. Hope you got my msg on instagram. Thanks!)
How to find more of us?
In the brute force method of trying to solve a problem, you just keep trying bunches of options until something ‘works.’ What I’m talking about in trying to brute-force finding ‘quality connection,’ is just randomly going around talking to people until, hey!, one or two times out of a hundred, it ‘works!’
SO YEAH. Realized it. I’m just not gonna find the curious people out here, on the road. As easily. People are just bored or stressed, and they want ‘a change.’ Which leaves me wondering, what am I doing here? Looking for the story. But… where is it? You can get lost in the places and you can find the stories, reporter-in-the-field, man-on-the-street interview style, by simply brute-forcing it, but you can also get incredibly bored (like just now. A weird encounter with someone upstairs made me locate to this downstairs, just-by-the-window table, where I feel better because no one is asking a lot of nosy questions about how I’m making a living and why I’m able to do this without having a) won the lottery or b) become a ‘YouTuber’. He said, ‘I’m just curious.’ I said, ‘I have things to do.’) Or maybe I was just getting annoyed because this place was a bit too hip for me (read: ‘pretentious’) and, while the coffee was indeed excellent, didn’t really do it for me, designwise. Too much clutter. Too much ‘interesting’. Too instagram-oriented. Too… overdone. Who was this for? What was its objective? The space, I mean. Was it for me? No. It was for the people who want to journey from afar to take a picture of themselves sprawled on the bed upstairs. Yes. Bed.
Too much.
Just… stop.
I’m a snob, right? Oh, well. Owning it.
Make it… a cafe, if it’s a cafe. (Weirdly, there was a sign on the way to that room that says model photography is not allowed. But of course people were there to take pix of themselves. There. In the cafe. The one with a bed.)
Will I be back there?
No.
Why?
Just. No.
Choosing when to engage
HARRUMPH. Well, that’s just me being me. Not wanting to engage when I just really don’t want to. Leaving and moving forward when something irritates. The wrong mood, the wrong phrase, the not-quite-interesting direction a conversation takes because that’s the slipperiest-and-least-awkward-supposedly, and doesn’t get hot with the friction of the right sort of conflict; not philosophies of how one gets on in a capitalist world but how one examines and explores life.
Need. To. Keep. Moving. To find more of us. You need to have real curiosity (and social grace, right?) if you want to be able to move towards the good stuff. I mean, really. Be good at conversations and things will emerge. For example, the whole thing I wrote above about getting annoyed and leaving abruptly contrasts very markedly to the other conversations I’ve had in recent days (Phnom Penh, Ipoh): contrast the above awkward moment to the chance encounters and story-relating with O. and N. Where there was an actual interest in one another’s histories, curiosity about one another’s pasts, real eye contact, even hugs and goodbye notes. And not a lot of boring (and I mean it in both senses of the word: boring into one’s personal life by asking protruding questions is just as –or more?–tiresome as a long conversation with someone dull).
Many times I have wondered about Johor–or JB. Writing it down. Writing about whom I meet that is actually interesting. Looking for the story; staying open. Giving myself five days.
Working on stuff
Testing out some photos for ‘The Book of Slow Moment’, a set of images DK gathered over June, July and August in northern Finland.
MEANTIME. THIS WEEK IN S P A C E, DK are publishing ‘The Book of Slow Moment.’ It had originally been put together as a photozine in black-and-white for a very (very) small set of people. Small circles. Keeps it interesting. But there was such a great response, I figured it might be a good time to share it again, with members of a slightly larger circle. The circle of S P A C E. Today, I’m sharing ‘The Book of Slow Moment’ again. This time, in color. Enjoying solitude and offline time for the last few weeks here in rural Malaysia, I’ve added a new set of words.
Sharing in the exclusive community that’s coming into shape: you know who you are. And thank you for supporting this work to go and find the stories that don’t get told, the ones about real people, who are young and curious or older and wiser, who are of the kind of mindsets that aren’t popular with the people who decide what goes into the press, with the people who are asking new questions and sending you amazing life tips and opening their hearts. It takes time to discover more of us, but I’m definitely gonna keep going, questing, asking questions, to connect and interconnect us. One. Designful. Moment. At a time.
This post is for C. Thanks for sharing your story with me, you really made my day. Good luck with the songwriting. And send me stuff, if you want. 🙂
Line art by Aubrey Beardsley. DK first discovered these drawings at an exhibition in London 1999. They sent DK inspired with pen and paper, looking for space in flat, matte composition while exploring the negative space in which ‘anything is possible.’ ‘Anything is possible’ was the studio’s first tag line, in 2004.
In search of meaning
E X P L O R I N G _ T H E _ A R T
of
Human Relationship
Times, shifts, curiosity about new people and new ways of thinking, and the general crisscross of emails and vague fragments of thoughts are what we write and share about in S P A C E. Works are creative nonfiction short stories, co-created with members of Design Kompany’s team both in Phnom Penh and in the places where we are going to discover new and different voices ‘out there,’ in the field..
Where are the new and unusual perspectives, hiterto underreported or cast aside as ‘ethnic?’ Let’s go find them. Let’s write them, share them, co-create them. In S P A C E Meet us there? Introductory offer: subscribe for just $4/week.
S P A C E posts every Tuesday at 7AM USEST. When. you subscribe, you’ll get it every week by email, plus these exclusive PDF zines, too. Themes change but the idea is that we get closer to the study of what it means to look, listen, discover, hear what we are able to piece together when we make a space for quieting, and noticing, both one another, and ourselves.
Publication schedule
Into the Quiet
4 December
S P A C E | Kärsämäki, ‘ The Book of Slow Moment’
22 January, 2019
S P A C E | Brussels, ‘The Work of Art’
A. Spaice goes to Helsinki to discover 16 random strangers and talk to them, at a once-off conversation salon on the theme, NEUROSIS. Here’s what happened.
12 February, 2019
S P A C E | Berlin, ‘Strange Geometries’
A jaunt to Lapland, unplanned and spontaneous, lands a pair of wanderers at the gateway of an unmistakably enchanted forest. Inspired by H. C. Andersen’s description in The Snow Queen of ‘Finnmark’.
A zine. Printed, limited edition. Ready to share these with members of S P A C E who pre-order by 29 Sept. Don’t miss the chance to get a printed zine in the mail that tells the story ‘Julia Set’.
JOIN DK and friends at the launch of the zine, ‘S P A C E || Helsinki,’ a creative nonfiction short piece that will be distributed in very limited editions on the day. Your ticket comes with one copy of the zine, whose pages are filled with words and collages DK gathered in real life in Helsinki in June and August, 2018. The zine’s lead story is ‘Julia Set,’ based on a conversation with a mathemetician about possibilites and multiple dimensions, but there is also a more low-key dialogue in ‘Exit Vantaa.’ Find out more when you check out the related blog posts, liket ‘Exit Vantaa,’ DK’s music ‘mix’, at this page, and more is also online about DK’s zines in S P A C E.
Looking for the kinds of places where you can go in the world and just hang out, write, or work, from the comfort of your desk-that-goes-where-you-do?
DESIGN KOMPANY is offering a short course that’s completely online from [update] 7 October called ‘The Cojournal Project: A Nomadic Existence.’ In this, we will be communicating once a week with you about the kinds of topics that are popping up as people who are moving away from traditional 9-5 lifestyles and finding themselves in cafes all over Southeast Asia, where we are, are starting to talk about the way of life that, for a lot of us, is weird and curious but also… freeing.
This programme is hosted by DK’s own Dipika Kohli, who was a staff editor at daily in Seattle and a bi-weekly in southwest Ireland (2002-2005) before turning to interactive magazines and spacemaking for conversations that get us out of boxes. In 2014, she won a Ted Howard Scripps fellowship for environmental journalism, flying to Colorado to get to know more about the field of writing for the sake of not just infotainment but actually depth and substance. She got talking with fellow editors around the United States then, and afterwards through continued correspondence, about how to make better space for conversations that actually move. That, for example, develop, progress, and teach us something interesting.
WRITING TO LEARN SOMETHING. Instead of talking about writing for the sake of publishing, what if we talked about writing for the sake of getting to know what we were even thinking. Like, writing towards a kind of clarity on who it is you really are, and what it is you really care about. A lot of people seem to go traveling to ‘get lost and find center,’ at least, that’s what I noticed from half o the people I’ve met on my travels in the 1990s (Ireland, India, Japan, USA), and more recently, in Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, Viet Nam, Nepal). Getting out of your space and seeing what else is in the world is a way of finding out a) what you want, and b) what you don’t want. But often we don’t have a chance to process what we are discovering because we are talking to the people we already know, instead of the people who are also on the same kinds of journeys.
A nomadic existence is a choice; it’s not for everyone, but it works for some of us. Knowing why and how, and being able to pinpoint those things for each of us, is a matter of simply delving into the questions and letting the answers come as they might. You know, you don’t have to have it all figured out at the start. You don’t even have to have it figured out in the middle, or at the end; the point is to know that you are searching and seeking with an intention that involves really caring about the journey. You have to care if you want it to become anything interesting.
What work you do, where you choose to ‘settle,’ if you choose to settle at all, whom you decide to partner with, if that’s something you want to do, and all the big questions of our lives that are related to these things that those of us finding ourselves in certain positions of privilege and capacity to move around the world and talk to people on the internet and somehow make some cash through that work is, well, a kind of curious set of things. If you are interested in writing towards some sense of self-awareness, and doing that with a small circle of others who are also ‘on’ for this kind of a challenge, consider applying for the Cojournal Project 2018.
We started this out in 2014, quietly, and it led to a short eBook anthology, The Mirror. In January of this year we opened The Mirror up as a separate workshop—100% online—that became a conversation space with forums, passwords and weekly prompts. I think that the interconnectivity of it is what made it truly great. Engaging with others who are very different from yourself: at least on the surface—is a way to start to get a perspective that is hard to find in everyday life.
‘Rereading Edward de Bono‘s book Teaching Your Children How To Think in recent days, I was reminded of the importance of sharing the variation of perspectives with young people,’ writes Dipika Kohli. ‘Of making it a priority to show them that there isomer than one way to look at a thing. That ‘rightness’ is a problem. That the argumentative stance that people like to take in Western societies, in which you get to feel good by putting someone else down, or by more eloquently arguing your way towards a position (even if it’s completely garbage, like showing through math that 2+2 = 5 (HT F), well, you see where I’m going wit this, right?)’
Make a space and find the muse
Meet your community and take practice to a new level. Apply here.
TAKE THE TIME to write with others. Journal your way towards clarity. Find the muse when you make the space. Not a lot, don’t worry. Each week’s prompt is designed to take just 20 minutes to complete. People say they like this because it holds them accountable to themselves, knowing that there will be a new prompt dropping into the inbox on Monday. Every week, 7AM USEST.
What’s different about this programme from the other online journaling projects we’ve seen online is that it happens in S P A C E, that is, it’s interactive. What you write influences what prompts follow.
This is not an algorithm or AI, this is a real person, Design Kompany’s creative director Dipika Kohli, for this project, will be customizing the next week’s prompts based on what you are writing in, as a small group. listening, sharing, empathizing: it’s all int here, but it takes showing up to get the best out of it. Take the 20 minutes of your week available to connect and to re-connect, first with yourself, then with others.
Design Kompany’s work is to make space for people to notice one another, and themselves. To pay attention. To notice the moment. That will dissolve before we know it. Ephemera, relational aesthetics, conversation space design… these are our beats. Ask us anything. Talk to us. Connect through the form at our ‘About’ page, and if this all sounds curious, try it out. We’re doing this for 12 weeks, [update] starting 7 October.
Application required. Open invitation. Apply here.
ON APRIL 1, a new collection, ‘Circumference,, will launch here at DK. It is a set of writing, imagery drawn and photographs made throughout 2017 in S P A C E. Our ‘Year of the Circle’ conversations in virtual and offline spaces led to dialogues that moved and shifted. In the end, we could see the gist of the thread: what makes for softness in our approaches to life, and work? Roundness, not squareness, that invites listening, seeing, empathy, and compassion. Which we need more of in this world, right? (Else we shall see more of the same: mansplaining, for example, and related irritations.) So DK examined those questions.
A new collection, highlights from Vol. III S P A C E 2016, ‘Year of the Circle’
We read from Inward Revolution (J. Krishnamurthi), and Lady Chatterly’s Lover (D. H. Lawrence), the latter of which was originally titled ‘Tenderness.’ Marketing can so spoil a thing can it not? The original intention for the title, though, is… Important. When the author wrote this book, he had already figured out what we are just waking up to: toxic masculinity, the pursuit of power, the conflation of money for prestige, and the lack of care (and respect) towards women is a giant problem, for all of us. The inattentiveness to what tenderness can bring us, and I mean tenderness, for real, is as Holden Canfield would call it a big black eye. The sheer obliviousness is crippling society from feeling well. Belonging, wholesomeness. Morality, culture. So much sharing on this topic informed the writings born here. (The back and forth nature of ‘call and response’ is how DK design and host space. So the meander, softness, intrigue, discovery and comfort that come with a rolling circle, bumping into walls and falling into holes (HT Shel Silverstein), makes this collection whole.)
We studied Non-Violent Communication, Cognitive Behavior Therapy, and Authentically Relating for this work of researching and corresponding with those members of S P A C E who opted to participate. This is how we grew, together, towards a new understanding. This is a co-created work, edited by A. Spaice.The S P A C E || Vol. III 2017 ‘Circumference’ collection includes the zine-stories S P A C E || Battambang (‘Here comes the Dance‘), S P A C E || Singapore (‘Dunlop & Perak’), and S P A C E || Ipoh (‘Highlands‘). Plus essays, Q&A pieces, features, and photo collections from Phnom Penh, Ubud, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, and Penang.
We are sharing it for free with our members, on 1 April.
On Saturday I’ll be here hosting the #8 edition of ‘Rooftop Philosophy in Phnom Penh.’ Where time has literally stopped. Expect the unexpected, and come see. More info at our website, see ‘Upcomings’. This time I’ll kick things off with what the bright physicist HL told me, about holography, time and space being one thing, and the three levels of intelligence in civilizations. Wish she could join us but good thing I took notes. ✨🗒
It has been four years since we began publishing our eZine, S P A C E. Which runs the gamut of topics relating to creating new, and better space, mostly the kinds that foster interpersonal dialogues that progress in a meaningful way. That doesn’t have to mean lifetime friendship, or anything. Just… It has to be real. Space for new thinking. New perspectives. New journeys, collaborations and friendships. New, though. New matters. New is where we push the edge, try new things, and grow. Meet me in S P A C E? Let’s play.
THE MIRROR is for helping you discover and listen to you. You don’t need anyone else to spell it out, but here it is: no one is going to regret it more if you don’t do the work than you. Did you read that article that went viral, a while ago? ‘Top 5 Regrets of the Dying’? >
DK’s online workshop for 2018 is THE MIRROR. The unique reflection workshop THE MIRROR will give you a chance to discover your way to fresh, revealing insights. On you: the inner motivations that are moving you towards your goals, your dreams, and your heart’s desires. We are accepting new guests on a rolling admissions basis through the end of March.
WHO SHOULD APPLY. If you are questioning the goals and methods that you have or are using, then THE MIRROR is ideal for you to re-evaluate and confirm your personal values are aligned with what you are doing and making at work.
If you are in a period of limbo,
if you are in transition,
if you have just come out of something or are about to head into a new phase, THE MIRROR is a good programme.
if you have been through some difficulty or a change,
or something has pushed you to question your own goals, vision, mission and values, then THE MIRROR is an excellent tool.
SCHEDULE. Posts will be sent weekly. Each week’s is designed to be complete-able within 20 minutes. These are sequenced to help you discover with clarity the pop that makes you very much you, and only you. You will be invited to share also in selected pages of our concurrent conversations going on in very small circles in Design Kompany’s protected-page forums.
A few testimonials from guests of DK’s online programmes…
‘Thank you for the opportunity.’ —Anonymous
‘It’s a unique project and it’s pretty special. If you’ve been looking for some structure or accountability in your writing—and supportive community in very small groups, this could be for you… a compassionate leader… offers some accessible assignments that are helping to shift my writing lens. I love it.’ —MH
‘Warmly recommend it.’ –SG
‘[This] motivated me more to do what I wanna really do and kick some a**… Thank you, DK!’ —JH
JOIN THE MIRROR. You’ll need to apply, then to register: Apply. Choose an 8-week or 12-week option. Late registration fee is USD $160-200. Selected applicants will be invited to register.
‘It’s good that we can still talk. A good conversation!’
‘It is. It was.’
‘About so many kinds of things! It keeps it new. I like that.’
‘I do, too.’
‘I think… I think that what’s really interesting is when you can have the old things and the new things, together.’
‘…’
‘I was talking about this the other day, when I was telling you I had such a great conversation jam? That was really fun, and you know, there are more things to talk about, all the time, as we go, because the talking towards some kind of discovery, even with the limitation of language as that is there, you know Niels Bohr said—‘
‘Who you love to quote.’
‘Who I love to quote! Who I love!, and yeah, he said, “We are suspended in words.”‘
‘…’
‘I think that S P A C E and writing like this is about suspension.’
‘…’
‘Everybody thinks they want stuff to be grounded, you know. Clear. Crazy clear and understandable, the bullet-point list. The one-pager. But… We also like to curiously float off sometimes, too. No one admits this out loud! I mean you can’t. It’s crazy talk.’
‘Yeah.’
‘But what you said, earlier, and last night, and everything. That was good. That was helpful. Informative.’
‘That was! Thanks.’
‘So we’re not fighting now.’
‘No.’
‘I like that we could skip over all the stuff we used to do, like sit around and process all the line-by-line stuff. I think I was just tired. And sick. I’ve been so sick. And all these papers, everywhere. And yeah. I’ve got to make a whole batch of zines, S P A C E || Malaysia has Ipoh, Cameron, Melaka, Penang, and Kuala Lumpur… And I’m only two-fifths done… And…’
‘Productivity isn’t the point.’
‘No.’
‘The journey is.’
‘Yes. But that is so… Philosophical and everything. But it is. The journey.’
‘…’
‘So, where’s next?’
Join us in S P A C E for more conversations. This month, we are giving away to new subscribers a PDF copy of Dipika Kohli’s book, Breakfast in Cambodia (Kismuth Books // 2016). It’s also available here.
A POPUP CONVERSATION salon, with snippets from our 2014-2017 highlights from the ezine, S P A C E. We will be hosting this in real life at a venue in Bangkok to be shared with registered guests only. Free with RSVP. To RSVP, contact DK through the form here.
A CONVERSATION. This is a chance to talk about the work you create, in words. ‘You need to be able to talk intelligently about your work,’ said one of our photographer friends in New York. It almost seems like if you google ‘artist statement’ you will get a bunch more advice about the how of that. In this very small and light conversation, we’ll work together to adjust and define, refine and connect with one another on the most basic level: in person, in real life. When you meet in person, you can say so very much. How about making a small space to just talk with others about your art? It’ll be light, easy, prompt-led, small scale, and probably insight-making. Challenge yourself. Perhaps you’ll find out something you didn’t know. THB 500. Ages 16+. Max 8. RSVP requested. All materials included. RSVP through the form:
DISCOVER YOUR SELF. Sounds crazy, right? You know yourself. Well, do you? In this era where layer after layer of facades keep us from truly relating to others, maybe it gets confusing. It’s a good time to take stock and reflect on who it is you are, under all of that. No cameras, no phones to distract, no documenting… That’s how we will host this very small-scale, intimate salon at the cozy Chong Nonsi venue pictured here. No need to bring anything. All materials will be provided. Hosted by Dipika Kohli. Which means you’ll get activities to facilitate insight-making moments through reflective writing. And a conversation party with other people taking part. No more than 8 seats for this.
Last seen at Neilson Hays Library in 2014, one guest had this to say about SELF…
‘Overcome my fear of writing’
I AM WRITING because I wanted to thank you all for sharing ideas and memoirs, I am very much impressed and really enjoyed the workshop [SELF]. I’ve been working on my writing, and finished one short story which I feel so happy after I finished writing it (it’s in Thai.) I’m working on its English version pretty soon and will send to you all for the feedback. Bottom line is I’m happy to let you know that I’ve somehow overcome my fear of writing, though there’re times when I got stuck with the stories, get distracted, or feel like it’s not good enough – if it was before, I was just going to give up. Now, I feel it challenged me and I find writing more enjoyable. Most importantly, I feel like my writing is getting better too. —J. Lee, Bangkok, 2014
In sum, SELF is a workshop that, intriguingly, also doubles as a conversation party. Meet people interested in exploring, through writing. Find your theme. Peel back the layers. Put your phone away, in a box. (Yes, really). And show up for yourself, for the others, and for a conversation in just under 3 hours that very well could change the course of your year. Are you on for the challenge? Register here.
Disclaimer: If giant life-changing steps follow this workshop, we are not responsible for the people in your life who get mad at us! This has happened.
