About

Department of Traditional Turkish Arts started education in the 2016-2017 academic year.  The language of instruction of the department is Turkish. Graduates who successfully complete the program are awarded a bachelor's degree in their field.

Employment Opportunities for Graduates
Graduates of this department can, first of all, open their own workshops as artists; They can work as art consultants in private and public institutions; They can work as researchers in libraries, museums and relevant ministries, or as personnel in the relevant units of the General Directorate of Fine Arts; They can work as restorers and conservators in public and private workshops, as well as take part in expertise matters; They can work as designers in fashion houses, garment workshops, home textile factories, carpet factories, and businesses that produce hand-woven carpets. They can also become academic staff at universities, educational and research institutions related to fine arts, work as designers in private and public institutions, and be appointed as teachers for decorative arts and visual arts courses in schools.

Especially in recent years, sustainable production policies and the interest of developed societies in organic products have brought a special value to hand-made carpet weaving. Handmade carpet production process; It consists of three parts: the pattern design of the weaving to be produced, the weaving technique, material selection and the product development (P&D) modeling process where the model weaving is done, the workshop process where the production is made, and the finishing process where the inspection, maintenance, repair and presentation of the products are carried out. Our students graduate with the equipment to master all of these processes. They can easily be employed in the carpet industry.   
Machine-made carpet, textile and ready-made clothing industry is an industry that plays an important role in the economic development process of developing countries and is one of the sectors where the industrialization process first started. It is possible for our graduates to be employed in the sector as weaving designers in yarn, weaving - knitting and raw textile surface, machine-made carpet production processes.

Purpose and scope of the department
Department of Traditional Turkish Arts in general terms; To develop policies and propose strategies to protect the national cultural and artistic heritage, to contribute to the development of national and local arts, to create inventories for various branches of handicrafts, to produce findings and realize innovations, to protect the Turkish culture, which is exposed to the invasion of other cultures with the intense pressure of globalization and mass media. It aims to pass it on to new generations and to encourage them to protect cultural values ​​and Turkish art.

Carpet, Rug and Traditional Fabric Patterns Department; The production techniques of shuttle (fabric) and kirkit (carpets, rugs, etc.) weavings, color usage information, pattern preparation techniques, motif drawing, composition creation methods, weaving design, iconographic features of motifs, historical background of weavings with shuttle (fabric) and kirkit (carpet, rug, etc.) that have matured with the accumulation of different regions and cultures for centuries, It aims to train designers and artists who know the processes and maintenance-repair methods. In line with this purpose, the main endeavor of the Department is to reveal the scope of traditional arts while providing students with basic skills in cooperation with other branches of art. In addition, another goal of the Department is to provide its graduates with the knowledge and skills that will enable them to be employed in the private sector, especially the public sector. 

The academic place of the department draws attention in terms of carrying Turkish handicrafts from tradition to the future in the context of art, aesthetics and knowledge. The most important aspect of the Department is to teach traditional arts to future generations with scientific methods and a methodological approach, beyond the master-apprentice relationship, to make them love art and to ensure that cultural values ​​are kept alive. The program is designed to contribute to this trend of the traditional arts discipline, which is in the process of proving its autonomy against plastic arts. The course contents and topics of the Department prepared in parallel will enable students to understand the difference between plastic arts and traditional arts and to become competent people in the art branch in which they will be trained. Academically, the department is at a point where it can serve the discipline of traditional arts without neglecting cooperation with other branches of art. While doing this, the courses are designed with the awareness that it is necessary to use technology as well as creativity, and are taught in a way that focuses on design supported by computer programs.

Technology is an effective tool in all value structures, from culture to art, in today's lifestyles. Against the claim that technology negatively affects traditional arts, by providing adequate technology use training in the field, traditional arts will be made more up-to-date than ever before. On the other hand, the cultures of nations are enriched by traditional arts. Developing technology enables nations to communicate more easily and intensively than before, and thus to share their cultural and artistic values ​​more easily. At this point, the department, which aims to educate people who are experts in their fields and who have mastered the subtleties of their art, is aware of its responsibility to fulfill what today's Turkey expects from it.

The fact that there are currently 5 full-time faculty members (2 Prof., 1 Associate Professor, 2 Assistant Professors) in the department can be considered as the strength of the program. The most important strength of the university administration that will enable the development of the program is that the university administration has a supportive understanding of handicrafts and values ​​art and artists in terms of encouraging and guiding the projects to be carried out. The university's current resources are deemed sufficient in terms of the required buildings and equipment. The dynamism and determination to work of a developing new university will be the most important factors in the success of the department.

Another strength of the department is that Kırşehir, where the university is located, is the place where the Ahi organization was founded by Ahi Evran. Akhism is a national cultural movement with social, cultural, economic and political dimensions, put forward by the Seljuk and Ottoman Turks, pioneered by Ahi Evran-ı Veli, and spreading from Kırşehir to the world. The Ahi organization, which ensured the sectorization of handicrafts, which were the professions of the period, also made significant contributions to the development of the art of weaving, which has survived to the present day. It was very important that the art of weaving, which has ancient roots, was given undergraduate education today.