atlas Harran is a design collection based on social, adaptive and collaborative design methodology, translating Mesopotamian knowledge and culture to today’s world through the handmade production of local and refugee women in Harran.
Harran is a district in southeastern Turkey, close to the Syrian border. The area has an ancient history, and Harran has been the gateway of many civilisations over the past 10,000 years. The contribution of these civilisations to the fields of architecture, astronomy, mathematics, geometry and societal interactions created through daily life rituals, have been taken as references in the project. The designers have translated these references into a collection addressing today’s language.
atlas Harran is an evolving project constantly adapting its processes to the changing sociological and political conditions in Turkey and the world. As the local and refugee women come and go, the knowledge/information of the production also constantly migrates.
atlas design collection is curated by Bilgen Coşkun and Dilek Öztürk, founders of IN-BETWEEN Design Platform, designed by Aslı Smith, Barış Gün, Begüm Cana Özgür, DAY Studio, INCOMPLIT and Şule Koç, who are based in Istanbul, Turkey. The project is initiated by the District Governor of Harran, and realised with ADEM (Family Support Centre) within the Governorship of Harran, dedicated to supporting women’s empowerment.
Curator: IN-BETWEEN Design Platform
Designers: Aslı Smith, Barış Gün, Begüm Cana Özgür, DAY Studio, INCOMPLIT, Şule Koç
Craftspeople: Mehmet Girgiç, Handan Ünlü, Hüseyin Aksu, Resul Yılmaz
Project Management: District Governorship of Harran
In-Between Design Platform
Founded by Bilgen Coşkun and Dilek Öztürk, IN-BETWEEN Design Platform is generating projects aiming to create value through design, bringing designers, industry and academia together. IN-BETWEEN is working as partners with European institutions for diverse design projects, connecting global design institutions with Turkish partners to raise awareness on establishing global design brands in Turkey.
Bilgen Coşkun is the head of Fashion Management at Istanbul Moda Academy and Dilek Öztürk is a part time lecturer at Istanbul Bilgi University Faculty of Architecture.
Aslı Smith
Multi-disciplinary designer – Asli’s works take inspiration from narratives of urban nature and traditional forms of craftsmanship, using materials and printmaking techniques that contemplate a connection with the environment. In 2016, she founded Heliotropic Studio. The studio creates works and organizes workshops on natural processes in art and design.
Asli holds masters degrees in Communications Design from Pratt Institute and on Media studies from the New School in NYC. She has also completed the Foundation Fine Arts program at the Parsons School of Design. Asli set up her own design studio in 2008. Her illustrations have appeared in various magazines (American Illustration, Communication Arts and Print), book publications, window displays, and textiles.
Barış Gün
Researcher and designer. Barış was born in 1984, in Istanbul. she holds a BA from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Department of Traditional Turkish Arts; Tile Design and MA on Museum Management at Istanbul University. In 2007, she started her own ceramic design studio specialized on pattern design, which lasted two years. After that she worked in various museums in Turkey and abroad, and few arts and design events such as Istanbul Design Biennial, Contemporary Istanbul, Design Turkey. Worked at the Virtual Museum of Industrial Design of Turkey (ETSM) as assistant of museum director and Design Foundation Istanbul as Event and Communication Manager. She has been working at her design studio called “barbo // work+shop” focusing on researches about museology, design history, Mesopotamia’s craft, design, production memory. She is also teaching elective courses at Mardin Artuklu University Architecture Department. She is working at the Phd program of Philosophy in Preservation of Cultural Heritage at Kadir Has University.
Begüm Cana Özgür
Studio Begüm Cana Özgür is a product and textile oriented design studio based in between İstanbul and New York.
Born in 1989, Begüm Cana Özgür received her masters degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art, 3D design department. In 2014, she started her studio based in Istanbul where the cultural richness of the land has been the major motive in her work, developing an interest in ancient craft practices. Cana’s work integrates design, art and crafts. Starting from the initial ideation, her design process is carried out hands on. She plays with common materials and existing techniques to fully understand their potential to develop a new contemporary expression. The experimental process results in the development and adaptation of skills, suggesting new ways of doing. Which enables design ideas finding a truly authentic form of body in her work.
DAY Studio
(EN) DAY Studio is a multidisciplinary design and consultancy office founded by Doğanberk Demir and Yeşim Eröktem in 2015 following their masters degree at ECAL. The studio works on various fields from furniture and lighting to textile design, table-top accessories to industrial products and packaging design.
DAY works with local and international companies including Habitat, Frette, Flormar, Gaia&Gino and Chivas next to their own brand AVLU, a collection focused on local manufacturing techniques, creating dialogue between design and İstanbul's rich crafts culture. Yeşim and Doğanberk fuses their cultural sensibility with a contemporary approach to create simple and functional objects. Their work has been exhibited at Wallpaper* Handmade, Salone del Mobile, Downtown Design Dubai, London Design Festival and Istanbul Design Week and featured at Wallpaper*, SightUnseen, Vogue, Architectural Digest and Elle Decoration magazines.
DAY Studio co-founder Yeşim is a part-time lecturer at Bilgi University and Doganberk is design director of Gaia&Gino.
Şule Koç
Şule Koç is an industrial product designer focusing on product design, spatial design and design consultancy. She graduated from Middle East Technical University, Department of Industrial Design with honors. After working as a design director in multidisciplinary design studios, she established her own design studio in 2010. The studio has been provided design and design consultancy services to international companies from various industries including furniture, lighting, kitchen, building elements and transportation. She has been giving lectures as a part-time instructor at Özyeğin University, Department of Industrial Design.
Şule Koç has been recognised by many national and international awards such as Red Dot Design Awards, Design Turkey Superior Design Award, EDIDA, A'Design Golden Award and German Design Awards.
Her current projects include interior projects, kitchen systems, furniture and tableware products, as well as providing product design and design consultancy services for brand communication through products.
INCOMPLIT
INCOMPLIT is a participatory design studio that crafts incomplete designs inspired by and later on completed with the creative power of different communities and their stories.
It believes in a magical correlation between fiction, empathy and creativity. In collaboration with NGOs, it designs 12 week-long thematic workshop series for different and diverse communities. While these workshops that are instructed by several artists from various disciplines are being built on well-known fairy tales, it aims to tackle the challenging task of redefining ‘welfare’ for all.
With this purpose in mind, each thematic series focuses on different social and ecological issues such as Gender Equality, Climate Action, or Life Below Water. This particular focus strives for reducing inequality amongst different communities in terms of reaching out to depths of the related issues and the available resources. For that purpose; we try to encourage children and adults to go in for critical thinking and to question their stored memories as well as their stories and galaxies.
To explore the real potential of the disadvantaged communities and help them rediscover themselves as ‘dreamers’ and ‘creators’, it designs outcomes being inspired by the whole process.
