What is Meridian?

Meridian is an international, non-governmental and non-commercial organization.

…Well, at least we like to call it an “Organization”, for lack of a better term, and because it makes us feel mysterious, powerful, and coordinated. But we’re not quite there yet — for now, Meridian is first and foremost a small, rock-solid team of friends with lots of young blood and good humour, eager to devote their energy and talents to something fun and meaningful.

Meridian launches and takes care of various projects and activities, but all of them have the common objective of stimulating, channelling and promoting the creativity of people from all over the world.

Currently, the commanding center of the Meridian empire happens to be located in Beijing, China, somewhat to the east of Dongzhimen metro station, but that’s just because the members of our team met, live and/or work somewhere nearby. We have different cultural and professional backgrounds (see below), and each of us enjoys different kinds of dumplings.

What is it about?

Through the use of modern media, such as online social networks, we find creative, talented people in different parts of the planet, and present them with platforms that help them disclose their works to people all over the world. These “platforms” are our projects.

Each of these projects is about a few key elements:

• Finding great contributors in a variety of different countries;
• Selecting some of their works, according to a given guiding theme;
• Organizing those different contributions into a framework (book, magazine, etc.);
• Distributing or displaying the final result through certain channels (art exhibitions, online selling platforms, traditional publication, etc.);
• Sharing any eventual commercial benefit with the authors.

What is the philosophy behind all this?

We undertake all of these activities in a spirit of mutual respect, freedom and equality, along with an eagerness to learn from others, and understand them.

Here are our basic principles:

1. Meridian is an organization transcending national and cultural borders, placing the values of freedom, equality, never-ending curiosity, as well as self- and mutual understanding and the core of all its projects.
2. Our objective is to find interesting and creative people in each of 24 main time zones of the planet, and enable them to transmit their passion for their city, their culture or their lifestyle to the rest of the world, through the use of modern media.
3. Each project is provided with a guiding theme to be followed by the works submitted. Such themes are chosen according to criteria of simplicity and universality. We want to gather different perceptions of the same basic notions, or answers to the same basic questions, from everywhere in the world, as expressed through the lenses of as many cultural backgrounds as possible.
4. Meridian encourages and stimulates the creativity of young artists, in a non-for-profit way. However, whenever possible, we try to generate some form of income through the intermediate of our different platforms, for the benefits of our contributors as well as to help us maintain our organization. But regardless, we formally pledge to maintain all eventually generated income absolutely transparent. A fair part of is assigned as a contributor’s reward, the other as organizational income.

Why do you do this?

Our projects give us a chance to meet and make friends with lots of interesting people everywhere, and be impressed day after day with their creativity and talent.

They also enable us to encourage them, and channel their works through various channels towards a larger public, while promoting a set of values which are dear to us. We want to empower the people we like and admire.

Alright, so what’s on the table?

Currently, we have started to work (or soon will) on the following main projects:

• The Meridian Magazine: Spearhead of our organization, the Mag will ultimately become an electronic publication distributed as an application downloadable on cellphones, electronic reading tablets and computers alike, with a high frequency of content update. Every issue will include contributions revolving around a new working theme.

• Fairy Tales of the World: A book series project, it aims at introducing to the Chinese public legends, fairytales and bedtime stories from all over the world, together with beautiful illustrations.

• The Way of the Saucepan: Another book series, similar to “Fairy Tales of the World”, apart from the fact that it gathers the secrets to a world of scrumptious recipes — complete with step-by-step photographic explanations.

• Dream Gallery [under construction!]: Through the interface of the Meridian Website, we invite our website visitors to write an account of a dream they had recently, while sleeping; we then ask other visitors to provide illustrations (photos, drawings, etc.) to accompany these dreams.

To learn more about each of these projects, and discover examples of featured contributions, please visit each of their individual pages!

Though each of these projects starts off by conveying its content through one medium in particular (magazine, book, website…), this content is eventually to be presented and displayed in a variety of ways: publications, cellphone applications, exhibitions, etc.

But regardless of the way in which those works are used, we will always (and we mean this!) ask for the permission of their authors beforehand, and share with them any sort of profit to occur (please refer to each individual project page for more information).

Seriously, who are you guys?

Momo (毛译敏). Traveller, daydreamer and freelance writer. Fanatical member of the CouchSurfing network, which she has enjoyed extensively in her travels, and even wrote a book about (“Hi, Couchsurfer!” – 2010). She is the author of feature stories for Chinese magazines and newspapers AD, Vogue, and Neweekly, and now works in collaboration with sculptor Xiang Jing (向京).

Dorian Cavé. Sort of French in the middle and British on the sides. Enjoys cheap alcohol, books, and trains. Currently learning how to sail a boat across the Atlantic.

Zhang Xiangdong (张向东). Once a journalist, he couldn’t abandon the habit of questioning people, which led him to write a book (“A Dialogue of Entrepreneurs”). He is now working on another one, “Almost Free”. Known to the masses as the founder and president of 3G.cn, the largest portal for mobile phone applications in China. Crazy about cycling – went around remote parts of China, Europe and Australia, soon heading to South Africa.

Effy Yu (余梦娇). Sign:Virgo. Just Graduated from the China Central Academy Of Fine Art. Currently working at Vogue China as the assistant of art editor.

Li Ying (李莹). BA and MA degree in transnational communication. Now a daytime dreamer working on the Meridian project, and night-time journalist working for the Global Times (a major Chinese daily newspaper). Loved postgraduate life in London, and is loving post-postgraduate life in Beijing.

Liu Gang (刘刚). Chinese. Proud father of a sweet little girl, and vice-president of Beijing publishing house Newstar Press. Co-founder of independant litterary collection “E&W Library” (东西文库).

Contact any of us (and all of us) at: