Jess Slipp speaks with Jess Øberlin, fashion designer and founder of the event platform PLASMA, about the importance of making space for visibility & collective intimacy. Is it possible to find unity by celebrating diversity?
Photographer: Anniek Mol

THE NITESHOP

"In Blank Space Magazine we interview designers on why they do what they do. We don’t focus on what the designer produces for a change, because that conversation is more common. At exhibitions, design fairs, or in design magazines, it is all about the final design and the designer. Even when the designers show the process behind their work, you see a curated version of the process.
 
As a designer you are trained to always be in a presentation-mode. With a lot of care designers think about the way their projects should be presented. Everything that is shown to the outside world about their work, or about themselves as designers is therefore very controlled. Because of that, we barely talk about: Why do you do what you do? Why do you think your work should exist? This is interesting, because most designers have an unbelievably strong drive to create. To create you have to have a strong vision on what do you want to add to the world. With the conversations in Blank Space Magazine we zoom in on this intrinsic motivation and what it means for their practice."