designers in the middle

Designers in the Middle encourage the language of collaboration within a geography. Since 2015, founder Rona Meyuchas Koblenz and co-founder Suzanne Trocmé have invited creatives, graphic designers, artists, fashion designers and product designers from all over the Middle East, the Levantine area to speak about the relevant threads that pull through contemporary design and the arts in the region, crucial to the development of all countries in the region.
Our talks programs over the years have been delivered during Jerusalem Design Week, Dubai Design Week, in New York during ICFF and in London at the V&A Museum, the Aga Khan Centre and The Design Museum.
2021 marked the first physical exhibition of a body of work a “Casbah”- a contemporary take on a “walled city" - which took pride of place at Somerset House for the London Design Biennale.
Our creative collective for the exhibition hailed from the UAE, Kuwait, Lebanon, Iran, Israel and Qatar. We strive to share creativity, thought processes, and furthermore support industry in the Middle East, including local micro production. The shared learnings have been carefully collated, curated and documented by the founders in film and audio as a “digital casbah” for participants who are unable to travel, for whatever reason.

Designers in the Middle is successful, through discussion, to break down imagined walls.