Kismuth’s Dipika Kohli was in architecture, design, and journalism in the United States and Western Europe, before relocating to Southeast Asia in 2013.
She published the first book in the Kismuth series, The Elopement, in 2012.
Others have included The Dive, Kanishka, and Breakfast in Cambodia. Each book in the series asks, ‘What about if?’, as metaphilosophy takes a center stage.
Kohli’s TEDx talk is called ‘There’s Not That Much Time Left’; it asks people to think critically about how they want to spend their lives each day, and invites the audience to explore how to live with intention. Watch the 18-minute talk at this link: dipikakohli.com/talks.
Just 8 years after this talk, the world has witnessed the havoc wreaked by a global pandemic, which significantly changed how we move, work, life, love, and relate to one another.
Experience
To research what it might be like to co-create zines on the spot in popup ateliers, from 2017-2019 she went to Northern Europe on multiple trips in order to continue to expand, explore, and discover. A quiet summer in northern Finland, urban hiking for the Art Nouveau scene in Latvia’s capital, and surmising what to do if it rained again while staying on a sailboat in Sweden got short stories written in bursts and shared through S P A C E, a subscription-and-crowdfunding supported zine.
Well before initiating the S P A C E project, Kohli was an editor for a weekly newspaper in southwest Ireland called the West Cork Advertiser. After 3 years in that country, she joined the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce as an editor and photographer for another 2 years. This experience helped her discover a wide network of people, and, by extension, explore new ways of thinking.
Through interviewing, connecting, hosting programs in real life, being interested in others, and generally staying ready to find the next new thing, she could listen, learn, and share.
Find reviews of her art, writing and design works at: http://dipikakohli.com.
Residencies + awards
- Ventspils Writers’ and Translators’ House, Ventspils, Latvia offered for 2020 (postponed)
- Kulttuurikeskus Vanha Paukku, Lapua, Finland, offered for 2020 (postponed)
- AIR Frosterus Kärsämäki Finland, writing residency, 2018
- Preet Nagar Punjab India, writing residency, 2015
- Japan Foundation, 2 grants for photo essay series, ‘Japanese Lines,‘ 1995 & 1996
Public appearances
Articles + columns
- S P A C E, weekly zine of Design Kompany‘s Atelier S P A C E, Phnom Penh 2017-present
- Column ‘Kismuth & The Way’, Saathee Magazine, Charlotte NC 2019
- Kanishka, published as a serial, Preetlari Magazine, Chandigarh 2016
- ‘The Death of Childhood,’ Dying Matters, UK 2015
- ‘The Truth of It’, published in Sisters Born, Sisters Found and the Bay Area’s Noe Valley Voice, 2014
- ‘Understanding Regional Identity in the Face of Rapid Development,’ ThisBigCity.com 2014
- ‘The Village Report’, Northwest Asian Weekly, Seattle 2013-2014
- ‘Just Being Honest’, Saathee Magazine, Charlotte NC 2013-2014
- ‘Are we allowed to be creative?’, ProcessedIdentity.com, Ottawa 2011
- ‘Ireland in the World Cup’, as reported from Tokyo for Skibbereen’s Southern Star, 2002
- ‘Ireland’s Oldest Man,’ feature story, Cork Evening Echo, Cork 2002
- ‘Tech Time for Universities,’ feature story, J@Pan Inc, Tokyo 2002
- Kohli’s freelance pieces have appeared in: AbroadView, Irish Times, Irish American Post, India Today Plus, Metro Eireann, The Raleigh News & Observer, Rediff.com, Sikkim Observer, Spectator Magazine, StudentTraveler, Southern Star, Tokyo Notice Board, Transitions Abroad, and Durham NC’s Urban Hiker.