ABOUT ATABEY
Puerto Rico, carried forward.
ATABEY interprets the soul of Puerto Rico through a feminine, delicate and culturally conscious perspective.
We do not create simply to preserve where we come from. We create to carry it forward—to transform memory into form, heritage into design and identity into objects made to endure.
OUR ORIGIN
Founded in Puerto Rico in 2018 by Puerto Rican artist Joyce Nieves, ATABEY began with a simple yet enduring desire: to create objects capable of carrying Puerto Rican identity beyond the island.
The name comes from ATABEY, one of the most significant figures in Taíno cosmology.
Associated with the earth, waters, fertility and birth, ATABEY embodies the feminine principle of life itself; the generative force through which life emerges, is sustained and continues.
She represents motherhood beyond the human sense: the earth as mother, the waters as origin and the feminine as a force of creation, inheritance and continuity.
This understanding became the philosophical foundation of the house.
For ATABEY, Puerto Rico is more than territory. It is something living—something that gives, nourishes, remembers and continues through its people.
Our work begins there.
A LANGUAGE OF OUR OWN
What makes an ATABEY piece distinctly ours is not simply the presence of a Puerto Rican symbol.
It is the way we interpret it.
Our visual language draws from Puerto Rico in its entirety: its history, architecture, Indigenous inheritance, flora, fauna, coastlines, mountains, traditions, everyday objects and the memories collectively recognized as our own.
We do not reproduce these references literally. We study them, refine them and reinterpret them through proportion, form and creative expression.
A familiar piece of architecture can become jewelry. A native flower can become an heirloom. An object encountered throughout childhood can be reconsidered as something precious.
The reference remains Puerto Rican.
The expression becomes ATABEY.
Our intention is to create objects that are culturally unmistakable without sacrificing elegance; pieces capable of existing far beyond the context in which their inspiration was first found.
Puerto Rican by origin. Considered in execution. Made to be part of your story.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE HOUSE
ATABEY understands Puerto Rican identity as a form of shared memory.
It lives in the places we recognize, the stories repeated across generations, the landscapes surrounding us, the traditions maintained by our families and the seemingly ordinary things that acquire extraordinary meaning once we are far from home.
The feminine perspective is central to our understanding of continuity.
Not femininity as an aesthetic alone, but as origin, inheritance and transmission.
Culture survives because it is carried, from one generation to the next through families, language, recipes, rituals, preserved objects and stories told again. It survives through everything one generation chooses to give the next.
This is the meaning of Atabey within the house:
The island as mother.
Culture as inheritance.
Creation as continuation.
Yet heritage, to us, is not something frozen in time.
Culture has always evolved. Every generation receives something and leaves something new behind.
Our responsibility is not simply to reproduce Puerto Rico’s past, but to understand it deeply enough to contribute meaningfully to its future.
Heritage is not a destination. It is a foundation.
THE FOUNDER
Joyce Nieves
Founder & Creative Director
ATABEY was founded in 2018 by Puerto Rican artist Joyce Nieves, whose creative practice began long before the establishment of the house.
Her perspective established the central language of ATABEY: an exploration of Puerto Rico through art, design, memory and a distinctly feminine sensibility.
Under her creative direction, the house has evolved from its earliest jewelry pieces into a broader inquiry into contemporary Puerto Rican design.
The story of Joyce’s creative practice; including the origins of the first pieces, the development of ATABEY’s earliest original designs and the evolution of the house, is explored separately in The Founder.
Discover Joyce’s story →
SINCE 2018
What began as a small Puerto Rican jewelry project has developed into an expanding archive of designs inspired by the island.
Across the years, ATABEY has explored Puerto Rico through its architecture, natural environment, history, traditions and everyday visual culture.
But our trajectory is not complete.
We are still building it.
ATABEY is not only interested in preserving what Puerto Rico has been.
We are interested in participating in what Puerto Rico becomes.
CARRY THE STORY
Discover objects created from Puerto Rico, designed to travel beyond it and made to remain.
Explore ATABEY