Problems of employees in professions with traditional, cultural, or artistic value, through to lost: the case of Mardin/Midyat filigree employees

One of the important cultural dimensions that reveal the life style of humanity, aesthetics of taste and understanding is traditional occupations. The rapid development and mass production of machines around the world have affected the life structure of people, caused a great change, and traditional occupations have also negatively affected in the face of these developments. The effect of traditional professions has also negatively affected the employees of these professions. Likewise, the demand for the products produced by handicraft decreased, imitation products emerged, difficulties arose in the traditional industrial production groups, difficulties in finding an apprentice, such as the decrease in the result obtained and its inadequacy, this led to mastery and the gradual disappearance of traditional professions. The art of filigree, which continues to be produced in provinces such as Trabzon, Ankara and Mardin, is also counted among the professions that are on the verge of disappearing with traditional, cultural or artistic value (Istanbul Tradesmen and Craftsmen Association, 2019). The history of the filigree practice, which is still maintained by the traditional exiles and produced in these regions, in the Midyat district of Mardin dates back to BC. It rose to 3000 years. An attempt has been made to reconstruct this effect through a qualitative study of filigree masters and other workers' confusions, due to the fact that the dense filigree art began to disappear in the Midyat district of Mardin province. For this purpose, questions were asked to the filigree masters and other workers in Midyat district about why the filigree profession is about to disappear, why the apprentice and master training in this field, employment problems and the last state of pregnancy. The suggestions and evaluations were made for the continuity of their profession from the people who work in the art of filigree, who continue their manual labor with the traditional method.