The most exciting art coming out of the Middle East right now is looking inward - to heritage, material and the poetry of the everyday, translating it into a contemporary language entirely its own. It is a movement that the region's institutions are increasingly choosing to champion, and and few have done so as elegantly as the partnership of Van Cleef & Arpels and Tashkeel.

For 11 editions now, the Van Cleef & Arpels Middle East Emergent Designer Prize, presented in partnership with the Dubai-based art and design incubator Tashkeel, has done something special: it has given emerging regional talent recognition, and also the resources, mentorship, and a global stage to shine. Every year, designers from across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait are invited to interpret a single theme through form, materiality, and innovation. This year's brief was Blooming Poetry, and the ask was for work rooted in local culture, sustainability and storytelling.

The winners, Joud Malhas and Rachel Antoun, showcased their unique concept titled Where There Is Uns. The winning piece is a light installation that reimagines the Bedouin tradition of lighting fires to welcome travellers with warmth, shelter and guidance. At its heart is something deceptively humble: cardamom, the spice folded into Arabic coffee as a gesture of hospitality. The designers repurpose discarded cardamom husks into semi-transparent bioplastic sheets, suspended in layers that warp and curve like nature left untamed, set against the grounding rings of travertine.

In its final form, the lamp has no conventional switch; instead, a twist-activated dimmer mimics the unfurling of a cardamom leaf, while a proximity sensor causes the light to intensify as someone comes closer. Inspired by Emirati poet Hamda Khamis' An Open Window, the piece is a sensory invitation to pause, reflect and connect.

This is a perfect expression of the two women behind it: Malhas, a Jordanian designer based in Dubai, works in spatial strategy and experience design, creating environments built for community. Antoun, a Lebanese interior architect, brings a deep sensitivity to new materials and the intersection of form, memory and public life. Together they have created a physical form representing emotion and history, which is exactly what Blooming Poetry asked of them.

The coveted reward includes week-long courses at the Dubai campus of L'ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts, supported by Van Cleef & Arpels, followed by a five-day immersion at the Maison's Paris campus in the historic Hôtel de Mercy-Argenteau, with visits to the city's great museums.

 

Van Cleef & Arpels, founded at 22 Place Vendôme in 1906, is a Maison built on inventiveness and poetry, a house whose entire legacy rests on the marriage of craft and emotion. Tashkeel, established in Dubai in 2008 by Sheikha Lateefa bint Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum, exists to nurture exactly the kind of homegrown talent that the region has long possessed but not always celebrated. One is a century-old custodian of European savoir-faire; the other, a young institution determined to embed UAE-made art and design into the fabric of society. In coming together, they make a powerful statement: that the future of luxury and craft is now being written here in the Gulf.

 

Where There Is Uns will be unveiled later this year as part of a dedicated public exhibition.