“Family Tree” Workshop Completed

The workshop titled “Family Tree” – Discover the Tradition through Your Family was held on our campus between September 11-16.

The aim of the workshop, led by designer Réka Farkas and co-directed and coordinated by designer and researcher Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ayşe E. Coşkun, was to produce creative solutions to preserve cultural traditions, handicrafts and motifs and bring them closer to the urban population of the 21st century.

Why is it important to preserve our cultural heritage and traditions in an increasingly digital world?

Having a past allows people to have greater self-awareness and feel rooted in their place in the world. While it is not easy for modern people to connect with their ancestors, understand their world, or think about it, we can understand the art of old through the memories and family history that generations have passed down.

Focusing on accessing and preserving traditional arts based on family history, the first half of the 5-day workshop saw participants attend a handicraft workshop led by Hungarian leather designer Réka Farkas, demonstrating traditional leather techniques, and in the second half of the project, they created a design object using leather materials.

A total of 15 Industrial Design students from Kadir Has University, Yeditepe University, Istanbul Bilgi University, Medipol University, Istanbul Commerce University and Marmara University attended the workshop.

The project outputs will be exhibited at the Cibali campus between October 2-9, 2023.

This workshop is carried out within the scope of the research project ReDiscover: Traditional Knowledge in European Creative Industries, supported by Creative Europe. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ayşe E. Coşkun, a faculty member of the Industrial Design Department at our university from Turkey, is working as a researcher in the project.

For more information: https://www.rediscover-project.eu/