Istanbul handicraft map seeks to revive artisans

ISTANBUL

An online project has been kicked off to save traditional handicraft shops in Istanbul by cooperating with modern designers.

“Crafted in Istanbul” is an online platform created to help artisans present their traditional designs through modern methods in order to prevent their professions from disappearing.

Three students - Barış Gümüştaş, Bilal Yılmaz and Seda Erdural - decided to start the project after attending a lecture at Istanbul Technical University’s Graduate Program for Industrial Design in 2012.
The platform finds craftsmen with a mapping system called “Istanbul Craftsmen Map,” which allows them to facilitate cooperation.

On their website, the team states that the aim is to increase the profile of traditional handicrafts. “The present system doesn’t give the craftsmen a place in production and reduces them to a cultural value. However, the craftsman shares the nature and morality of the material out of the relationship it forms with a designer and creates a holistic knowledge,” it says.

The map includes the specialties of the designers and the craftsmen, their contact information and pictures of themselves and their products. The map can be examined with two different filters, “crafts” and “materials used.” It is also possible to add craftsmen who you know to the map.

“The craftsman’s masterful use of material and the designer’s creativity produces new possibilities for both actors. Keeping crafts and craftsmen alive can only be possible through our cooperation with them,” the statement adds.

The project first started with a studio that belonged to 99 craftsmen and it has been working constantly ever since.