S P C | Hà Nội, 'Bittersweet'
DK's past works in Vietnam have centered largely on conversations with people, mostly younger people, who are looking to find their way in the world. Perhaps it is because DK are outsiders, generally, or the fact that people we meet do not have to worry, when speaking English, about using the right words to address elders or those younger. We're just peers.
Many conversations so far have revolved squarely around: family. Relationships, struggles, and expectations get in the way, DK has begun to understand, of someone finding her or his or their own way. The internet offers a way 'out' of the usual boxes, of course, but so does mixing with an international aesthetic, too.
How the story, and art, was made
The cover image is a set of art books made by Kohli and photographed in a sunny studio, the popup venue for Atelier S P A C E | Hà Nội, in the autumn of 2019.
Also included is the poem, 'Bittersweet', which was co-created between strangers whom DK found and got to talking with, and also, talking with, together, as is DK's way. The output was a co-created piece, using the technique of a Surrealist parlor game called 'exquisite corpses.' Checkit.
This week, we share an updated issue of S P A C E. It was originally published in 2019, out of conversations in Hà Nội and in Đà Nẵng, around the time of Tết. Many were coming back from abroad, and told DK their stories.
A sense of being far, and near. Simultaneously, and in one moment. Dissonance? Not really. It's this and that, existing, and co-existing.
More to say, philosophically, with those whose paths we continue to cross, by chance, or by appointment, wherever we go, in S P A C E.
Quân Nguyễn
The lead story here is by Quân Nguyễn. Nguyễn writes about his time abroad Denmark, at a 'Julefrokost' party in Aarhus. Anyone who has struggled with life away and the uncanny unsettled feeling that comes from returning may be able to relate to his story. It's called 'Unnecessary Jackets'.
Dipika Kohli
Dipika Kohli is an author, publisher, designer, and curator of S P C. Kohli's written and visual work, as well as curations, juxtapose people, place, and found imagery in 'minitheaters' as well as digital 'zines' like S P A C E. She engages with media at hand, wherever she is, to build something out of what's available in that moment, with that feeling. A bricolage artist at heart, she thus invites the new to enter any frame: when mixed, there is invitation for those who are participant to connect, reconnect, and revisit their idea of such fixed thinking as 'this is where this is taking us' and 'here is what we know.' Do we know anything, for sure? Ask the quantum physicists. Ask N. Bohr: 'How wonderful that we have met with a paradox; now we have some hope of making progress.'