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Hacettepe University bridge between human thoughts and complex human
Faculty of Fine Arts emotions.Therefore it may be claimed that art forms a
balance between the rational and the emotional. It is
for this reason that art is very important for the devde-
I am deeply honoured to have been asked to talk at
this distinguished gathering , the motto of which is lopment of successful individuals.
“art for peace”. Considering the times we are living
in, times of global atrocites and wars which lead to a Today I am going to talk neither about art in general,
nor about ceramic art in particular. But I am going to
state of general pessimism and hopelessness among
people this is an extremely appropriate motto. Me- talk briefly about how this faculty and the Department
etings of this kind bring artists from different parts of of Ceramics were founded to refresh the memories of
the world, beyond boundaries of religious belief, nati- those who remember those days and also to have the
onality and private value systems together to promote opportunity to compare those early days with the pre-
sent and thus appreciate the development.
coexistence, interaction and creativity which ,in turn,
will, hopefully, promote a culture of tolerance,respe-
ct, partnership, fellowship,dialogue, and thus pave the It was exactly 36 years ago, in 1982 that the new uni-
way to a presence of peace in the world. I am of the versity law, following Atatürk’s national goal of pro-
opinion that such gatherings also help ease the fears moting arts because he believed, if a nation had no art
or artists of its own that nation could not become fully
of young people who do not desire to be at the mercy
of negative circumstances in the future and by the help alive, gave Hacettepe University the mission of foun-
of these contacts their years ahead will be illuminated ding the very first faculty of fine arts in Ankara. I was
with new possibilities and hopes. appointed the founding dean of this faculty. I worked
for twelve years as dean. It was a very trying responsi-
bility but at the same time equally honourable.
This morning I am especially proud of witnessing the
successful organisation of the younger academics of
the Ceramics Department of this annual International In order to start the faculty we had to have space for
Macsabal Symposium. I am convinced that the Depart- students and faculty staff to teach them. In Ankara, ex-
ment of Ceramics is in really good hands and they are cept for Gazi Teachers’ Training College that had been
founded in 1932 we had no other available resources
continuing a tradition established by late Professsor
Hamiye Çolakoğlu who taught her students and her to invite artist/teachers for our Painting, Sculpture and
young colleagues to look around their environment Graphics Departments. In that respect we were lucky.
and at themselves with a different eye, so as to incre- Artists who had studied various art disciplines in Euro-
ase their sensibilities and become creative in their ef- pe on state scholarships were teaching at this college
and they responded positively to our invitation. Unfor-
forts of producing art works because as Alfred Tonnel-
le, a 19th century French writer said “the artist does tunately the College had no ceramics program. At the
not see things as they are but sees them as he is. In time all the ceramics artists were active in Istanbul and
other words, in very broad terms art is self recogniti- they would not even dream of coming to Ankara. In
on. Art which is a totality in itself serves as a that sense Ankara was quite unproductive.

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