İdil Bilgin's Journey

I place this so-called “magical public formula”, namely conservation, at the center of my studies and applications and thus use an alternative or non-mainstream approach to promote heritage advocacy in my country. My initial experience in the field has been to create a graduate course named “Conservation of Culture" and to start teaching it at Boğaziçi University. After a short while, I took a "Children's Books" course at Koç University and decided that the biggest impact could be created by raising awareness in children at earlier ages. That was when I decided to write children’s books on cultural heritage conservation. My first book Tracing Heritage in Konya (Konya'da iz Peşinde) won the 2015 Research Award granted by Koç University VEKAM (Koç University Vehbi Koç Ankara Studies Research Center).

 

Later on, I combined the knowledge I gained from my master’s thesis with my practical field experience on a creative platform to design a learning model titled “Emotion-Focused Cultural Heritage Preservation Education.” While developing this, I was guided by the belief that “a child only becomes curious about something if they love it, and if there is curiosity, learning becomes permanent.”​ So, how could one create lasting positive emotions in the new generation—often referred to as Generation Alpha—toward something old and static from their point of view? At this point, I began to deeply explore learning techniques that support 21st-century skills. I then synthesized the ones that aligned with my mission and created a learning model that I can briefly describe as a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) approach focused on objects and gamification.

Today, I conduct all my work within the framework of this emotion-focused model. Over time, under the umbrella of the Studio Cultia brand, I have further developed and enriched this approach, and as a team, we now define it as the “4D Learning Model”—an interdisciplinary approach centered on emotion, senses, and experience.​ Using this model, I conduct teacher trainings and children’s workshops, occasionally teach club classes at middle schools, and give undergraduate courses at universities. Additionally, I design museum education kits and organize workshops at schools that use my books as reference materials. Together with the Studio Cultia team, we are carrying out all these activities within the scope of a book and workshop series focused on UNESCO Heritage Sites in Turkey.

 

As for the societal and individual healing I mentioned at the beginning, I believe bonds with heritage can provide an answer to many of the current conflicts and unrest in both societies and individuals. At the societal level, if we can contribute to the creation of a generation whose heritage preservation attitudes drive from a universal perspective of identity and solidarity, we can be one step closer to social welfare. At the individual level, if we can integrate a value as long-lasting as cultural heritage into today’s demanding age of consumption, technology and information, we can imagine individuals who are more at peace. In fact, we can even imagine enhanced levels of creativity and spirituality, enabled by the warmth and depth that interaction with cultural heritage objects can provide. Approaching the issue from this perspective, I pursue my work with the hope of contributing to both the societal and individual levels of the issue.