In the 5th Istanbul Design Biennial, curated by Mariana Pestana and titled 'Back to Empathy: Design for More than One', atlas harran focuses on the impact of geography on the design process and the migration of production knowledge as well as displacement.
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 by 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 civilizations. Dating back to 10.000 years, these civilisations' contribution in the fields of architecture, astronomy, mathematics, geometry and societal interactions created through daily life rituals, were taken as references in the project. Designers translated these references into a collection addressing today’s langauge.
atlas Harran is an evolving project constantly adapting its process to the chang-ing sociological and political conditions in Turkey and the world. While the local and ref-ugee women are changing places, the knowledge/information of the production is con-stantly migrating.
For the 5th Istanbul Design Biennial, Aslı Smith designed a series of paper weaves titled as Ephemeral and Incomplit designed a textile installation titled as Public Dreams. Creat-ed with natural dyes and pigments, Ephemeral takes inspiration from colors, textures and mythology of Harran. It is a meditation on nature and time transforming the physical. Pub-lic Dreams is inspired by the myths of Asyrian, Babylonian and Greek civilizations settled in the area of Harran, reflecting the repeating story arc of ‘the myth’. The project under-lines the role of myths on gender norms. Specifically, with its colors in transition and the spiralling circular patterns, it highlights the need to supersede the strong asymmetrical stratifications between genders towards a world of multiplicity as well as interwoven nar-ratives and identities.
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 initi-ated by the District Governor of Harran, and realized with ADEM (Family Support Centre) within the Governorship of Harran, dedicated to support women empowerment.
atlasharran.com
You can visit atlas Harran exhibition at In-Between Design Space / Tomtom Kaptan Street No: 10A, Beyoglu
For reservations: info@in-between.online
Biographies
In-Between Design Platform
in-between.online
Founded by Bilgen Coşkun and Dilek Öztürk, IN-BETWEEN Design Platform is gen-erating projects aiming to create value through design, bringing designers, industry and academia together. IN-BETWEEN is working as partners with European institu-tions 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
aslismith.com
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 de-sign.
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
www.barboworkshop.com
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 var-ious 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 Foun-dation Istanbul as Event and Communication Manager. She has been working at her de-sign 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
www.begumcanaozgur.com
Studio Begüm Cana Özgür is a product and textile oriented design studio based in be-tween 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 inter-est 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 ad-aptation of skills, suggesting new ways of doing. Which enables design ideas finding a truly authentic form of body in her work.
DAY Studio
daystudio.com
DAY Studio is a multidisciplinary design and consultancy office founded by Doğan-berk Demir and Yeşim Eröktem in 2015 following their masters degree at ECAL. The stu-dio works on various fields from furniture and lighting to textile design, table-top accesso-ries 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 man-ufacturing techniques, creating dialogue between design and İstanbul's rich crafts cul-ture. 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
sulekoc.com
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 de-sign studios, she established her own design studio in 2010. The studio has been pro-vided 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.com
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 collabora-tion with NGOs, it designs 12 week-long thematic workshop series for different and di-verse communities. While these workshops that are instructed by several artists from vari-ous 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 ecologi-cal 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.