Cultural Heritage

Cultural heritage can be defined as a source of identity, harmony and creativity which contains common stories and adventures of a society and all forms of its cultural creation and strengthen the sense of solidarity and unity among people by the help of traditional knowledge and practices. It is obvious that culture introduces diversity and freedom to our lives by way of various aspects ranging from ancient monuments to museums, traditional applications to modern art. Cultural heritage, which includes tangible elements and intangible components as well, shape today’s and tomorrow’s world consistently based on original contents that are re-generated under favor of reservoir received from past. Cultural heritage, which is an indispensable source of life and inspiration, has regularly been brought up to the agenda by some organizations, particularly UNESCO. Presented to the attention of international community, cultural heritage represents universal values of humanity, although yet by different emphasis from the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage of 1972 to the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of 2003. When considered from this point of view, identification, safeguarding and transmission of cultural heritage is of capital and undeniable importance to intercommunal dialogue and peace. When one thinks that cultural content, which is under threat of culture industry of the West in many parts of the world, appears all in the standard forms in processes of production and transmission, it can be understood that, cultural heritage has a big potential to contribute to social and cultural prosperity. For instance, cinema industry has the brightest examples of culture industry. Here, a production of high quality, which can be created based on the Book of Dede Korkut or the Epic of Köroğlu, contributes a lot to the reproduction of Turkish cultural memory. Strong solidarity of individuals who are willing to reproduce and transmit this heritage, in other words, community involvement is one of the elements that could highlight cultural heritage as a source of prosperity. As one of the main domains of our Association is to take part in national and international cultural heritage projects, activities that feature community involvement are performed.