A research on sustainable development approaches of illumination educators of intangible cultural heritage bearers: The case of Ankara

In order for art to contribute to the sustainable development, the awareness of the artists regarding this issue, must be developed. This could be obtained through an art education, which is eco-sensitive and sustainability focused. Since traditional handicrafts and illumination in particular, is transferred from generation to generation through master-apprentice relationship more than formal education, the level of awareness of illumination educators regarding sustainability is of great importance. Therefore, the main aim of this study is to investigate the level of awareness, attitudes, and behaviours of illumination instructors regarding sustainability; whether there were any significant relationships among those variables; and whether there were any meaningful differences among those variables in terms of age, gender, and education. In this context, the Sustainability Awareness Scale is applied to those illumination educators of Intangible Cultural Heritage Bearers located in Ankara, and besides, among those, structured interviews were conducted with the ratified illumination educators and thus the data which is obtained were analysed both through quantitative and qualitative methods. According to the research findings it was revealed that there were positive relationships between sustainability awareness and both attitudes and behaviours; and that there were significant differences among those variables in terms of education level in such a way that the level of sustainability awareness was revealed to be increased as the level of education increased, and this is observed to be reflected to the attitudes and behaviours regarding sustainable development. In light of these findings, it was concluded that if the sustainability awareness of illumination educators were developed, this would reflect to the sustainability attitudes and behaviours, and thus a sustainability culture was to be transferred to the next generations. Since there has not been any study yet, which has investigated the relationship between illumination art and sustainability, although there have been studies investigating the relationship between art and sustainability, this research is expected to fill this gap in the literature.