Art education and public art

This study was carried out with the purpose of researching the contributions ofthe arts projects to the arts education of the masses living in metropolitan areas whohave a low socio-cultural and economic level and cannot benefit from the areas ofarts (e.g. museums, galleries, etc.). The universe of the research was the masses withlow socio-cultural and economic levels who have participated in the public artsprojects in Ankara. And the sampling of the study comprised the employees of 25different workshops who participated in the public arts project carried out by ÜmitÖzbek in CFT textile workshop in Keçiören, Ankara.The artist had each of the 25 people who were chosen as the sampling takethree photographs. Then the artist carried out various works based on thesephotographs and placed these works in the environment which the participants werein. The behaviors of the participants during the process of creating the works andtheir approaches toward the works during the one-week period when the works wereexhibited were observed. The results were obtained by means of the observationforms of the participants by which a scoring out of 3 points was made by evaluatingtheir behaviors and approaches under 33 main titles and 96 sub-titles and thephotographs taken by them.When the general average of the results which are in accordance with the subpurposesare considered, it was found out that 29 % of the participants couldn?t haveshown any improvement in the direction of the purposes of the arts education, 45.5% had the potential for development, and 25.5 had shown improvement. At the endof the study, the development realized by the participants was considered to bepromising. And the judgment reached at the end of the study was that public artsprojects had a contributory effect on the arts education of the masses living inmetropolitan areas who have low socio-cultural and economic levels and cannotbenefit from the public arts areas (museums, galleries, etc.).