I love to connect people. I do not use social media, so I prefer to do this through real life installations, which became difficult during the pandemic, of course. Now, they are adjusted for very small scale meet ups now and then.

But, before all this, I always was the person in any given community where I lived whom you could count on to know people from many different subgroups. I do not like cliques. I like to mix people from groups together so they get to hear, and be heard, and thus experience firsthand some exposure to a fresh, new perspective. It is what I learned from travel, in my solo tours in my teens and twenties. You just don’t know what you don’t know.

2023. Due to the pandemic, I’ve slowed down quite a lot. Virtual meets just don’t have the same zing for me, so I keep those conversations to just a small group of very close friends, and that’s good enough for me. Regarding more conversation parties, I’m considering it.

With a few adjustments. Now, it’s very low-key and small in scale. I don’t really go out of my way to announce these now. It’s super opt-in, for just a few. That works. The big idea was always to invite, and connect, and interconnect, and that’s okay if it’s just four at a time.

The best part of this adjustment is that I get to participate more. I love being closer to my own installations and conversation salons because I am part of the group’s meandering flows of dialogue instead of facilitating space for them to happen. This is nice.

Atelier S P A C E Ho Chi Minh City, 2020

Dipika Kohli’s Conversations

Arts and Letters Society, Kuala Lumpur

Aether: Is the medium still the message?, Durham NC & Washington DC

Atelier S P A C E, Ho Chi Minh City

Beauty: What is it? Who gets to decide?, Phnom Penh

The Book of Red, Hanoi

Book of Songs, Copenhagen

Book of Time, Phnom Penh

Breakfast in Cambodia, book launch and reading at TINI, Phnom Penh

Candletalk, Phnom Penh

DATA, Durham NC

Do We Need Internet to Find Friends?, Seattle

Dream Kitchen, Seattle

The Elopement, reading at Bull McCabe’s, Durham NC

Ennui, Phnom Penh

Flourish: What is the role of the artist?, Seattle

Hei Kesa, Oulu

MAKE: What is the creative process? Who uses it? What changes as a result?

Math + Jazz, Phnom Penh

Minority: What does it mean to be overlooked?, Durham NC

Modern Sikkim: What does it mean to be ‘Sikkimese?’, Gangtok India

Origin: What is ‘fromness?’, Phnom Penh

Printed Matters, Singapore

Rocktalk, Ubud

Rooftop Philosophy in Phnom Penh, Phnom Penh

A Talent Show, Chiba Japan

The State of Publishing, Durham NC

The Third Place, Phnom Penh

Whisky, San Francisco