Atlas Harran Design Collection

Translating Mesopotamian knowledge and aesthetics to our times

A design collection curated by Bilgen Coşkun and Dilek Öztürk, founders of in-between.online, with handmade production by women in Harran.

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About the collection

Design that carries a place forward

Atlas Design Collection translates Mesopotamian cultural heritage and aesthetics to our times. It aims to integrate social awareness and a sustainable design economy with the rising values of the global design scene.

The project is managed under the directorship of Ömer Faruk Çelik, District Governor of Harran, and is realised with ADEM (Family Support Centre) within the Governorship of Harran. Production is handmade by women in Harran, including local and Syrian refugee women.

Our story · Designers & curators · Governorship of Harran

Objects

A closer look at the pieces

Small ceramic forms, wooden surfaces and felt textures — the collection moves between tableware and everyday objects.

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Mırra cups — marbled exteriors with coloured interiors.

H-Cut — wooden boards that double as serving platters.

Wood and cotton — materials of the Harran plain.

Tote Bag by Öykü Özgencil.

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Press & media

Materials for press and partners

Press pack materials and project information are available on request. For interviews, images or further details, write to us.

Press & media

The Atlas Harran Design Collection begins with a simple conviction: that the knowledge carried by ancient Mesopotamian civilizations still has something to say to the present. Rather than treating heritage as something sealed behind glass, the collection reads it as a living language of form, symbol, and gesture that can be translated into objects for contemporary life. Under the curatorship of Bilgen Coşkun and Dilek Öztürk, founders of in-between.online, this translation is approached with care, letting the visual and spiritual vocabulary of the region inform design rather than simply decorate it.

At the heart of the collection is Harran itself, a place whose plains, layered history, and close relationship with the sky have shaped the imagination of everyone who encounters it. The region's long engagement with astronomy and astral belief gives the work its recurring motifs: the sun, the moon, the stars, and the cycles they trace across the night. These celestial bodies appear not as ornament but as ideas about time, fortune, wisdom, and prosperity, carried forward into objects that invite a quieter, more reflective relationship with the everyday.

Designers in the collection respond to this inheritance in distinct ways, each finding a personal route into the same shared source. Some draw on architectural symbols and the multi-layered structure of settlements built and rebuilt across periods. Others turn to ritual and belief, to the practices of local communities and the spiritual weight of cleansing and renewal. The result is a body of work that feels varied yet coherent, held together by a common curiosity about how old meanings can survive in new materials and new forms.

A defining feature of the project is its attention to making, and to the people who make. Handmade production by women in Harran places craft knowledge at the center of the collection rather than at its margins, allowing traditional skills to meet contemporary design thinking on equal footing. This approach reflects a broader interest in a sustainable design economy, one where social value and aesthetic ambition are not in competition but are understood as parts of the same undertaking, rooted in the place and the people who keep its traditions alive.

The collection also opens outward, aiming to bring regional heritage into conversation with global design discussion. Tableware, textiles, and objects for the home become points of entry for larger questions about memory, identity, and how cultures carry themselves forward. By treating Mesopotamian aesthetics as a source of contemporary relevance rather than nostalgia, Atlas Harran invites designers, makers, and audiences to consider what it means to honor the past while designing honestly for the times we live in now.