• 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.

  • Our creative collective for the exhibition hailed from the UAE, Kuwait, Lebanon, Iran, Israel and Qatar. We strive to share creativity, and thought processes, and 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.

    “I was always curious to explore different design cultures. Local and traditional crafts are the backbone of the design industry and it has a strong social impact on our lives. Boundaries and walls were not conceived for designers and makers, DITM is about breaking those walls” - Rona Meyuchas Koblenz, founder.

“A stream of consciousness is organically shaped by flexible thinking, by tolerance and by trust It is an ongoing creative process within our Designers in the Middle platform bringing a unique culture from the Middle East region and it’s environs. Our stream of consciousness has been and is being developed together collaboratively, and in unison, but apart, as our team of designers are based in countries that have no diplomatic relationship therefore they cannot meet.
The stream of consciousness is our design and curatorial process and the place where our nomadic storytelling is told”

Curated educational program

  • London Design Museum 2016

    Talked program during the London Design Festival 2016.
    Moderator: Suzanne Trocme’
    Presenter: Rona Meyuchas Koblenz
    Partecipants: Annabel Karim Kassar (Lebanon) Hagit Pincovici (Israel)

  • The Javits Centre, NYC 2017

    As part of ICFF talks programs
    Moderator: Jerry Helling
    Presenter: Rona Meyuchas Koblenz
    Panelists: Taher Asad Bakhtiari (Iran)
    Khalid Shafar (Dubai)

  • V&A London 2017

    Global Design Forum during London Design Festival.
    Moderator: Suzanne Trocme’
    Presenter: Rona Meyuchas Koblenz
    Panelists: Nada Debs (Lebanon) Rami Tareef (Israel)

  • Domain De Boisbuchet, France 2018

    Five days workshop/Installation.
    The fence is an ambivalent symbol for separation or protection, for hatred or love; it may stand for captivity or be a confinement for the sake of freedom. Our fence will be “green” and made from local materials found in Boisbuchet. Unlike a wall one could cross our fence, touch and see through it and perhaps even “sit on the fence”.

  • London Festival Architecture 2019

    Curated by Melodie Leung, Senior Associate at Zaha Hadid Architects and the Museum of Architecture. The talk and seminar was held at the Aga Khan Centre, London under the theme Collaborations.
    Moderator: Ellie Stathaki
    Partecipants: Rona Meyuchas Koblenz, Hayfa Matar, Marina Otero Verzier, Jane Wernick

  • London Design Biennale 2021

    The first pavilion representing the Middle East, presented at the Somerset house during the London Design Biennale.
    Designers from Iran, Qatar, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine worked together under the theme of the Casbah in a Stream of Consciousness process that took 18 months to develop.
    The pavilion exhibited during the Biennale 1-30 July 2021

  • A Curate Shenkar College 2022

    I was invited by Galit Gaon (Former curator Design Museum Hulon) to give a lecture about the Stream of Consciousness as part of the post graduate curatorial course, Shenkar College of Design, Art & Engineering

  • The Community

    Designers in the Middle pushes the boundaries.
    In 2008 I wrote an article titled Designers in the Middle, it was never published because of political constrains.
    In 2015 I met Suzanne Trocme’ and together, we took the narrative and we used the right language which made Designers in the Middle, a living, life changing brand.

The notion of play

Play is freely chosen, personally detected, intrinsically motivated behaviour that actively engages people of all ages and all cultures. The notion of play is universal. By playing together, we create a dialogue, we stimulate our minds and we speak similar languages by using similar codes.

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