Carpet Design Association HATAD was founded in Gaziantep.
The capital of the carpet, Gaziantep, is now a candidate to become the capital of its design. The association, called HATAD (Carpet Design Association) founded with GAOB in 2020 will move its studies to the international field. HATAD chairman Selçuk Sayılı, mentioned the association and its studies, stated that they will arrange meetings and contests with together the students, trained in the relevant departments in different countries and the designers.
How did you decide to establish an association for the designers firstly?
There are many designers in Gaziantep. The government only recognizes university graduates as designers. Although the number of university graduate designers has increased in recent years, the number of self-thought designers is now higher. The government says that these people are designers, and for this, they must have documentation from an official institution that they are designers. HATAD (Carpet Design Association) was founded in Gaziantep Şehitkamil Art Center in order for brands to benefit from this.
OK, how was HATAD founded?
We formed board of directors with willing 11 friends as designers. We looked for an office for this. We met Şahinbey Municipality while looking for. Şehitkamil Mayor Rıdvan Fadıloğlu gave us 2 rooms and workplaces in this center in which there are exhibition hall and conference hall. We want to move the cultural and artistic and other activities to the international level. We are continuing the studies in order for the students from the relevant departments in the various countries’ universities. Because of pandemic in 6 months, though there have been some troubles in our attempts, we are sure we will take results about our studies later on.
And then we thought there must be a place to meet the visitors and our designers will spend time We opened Steps Café in the entry of art center for the members and designers of the association to spend time beside studies..
What kind of activities are you planning to do as an association?
Our main goal here is to expand the horizons of designers and increase their self-confidence. We will try to support the designers here so that they can fully demonstrate their true performance and abilities. Thus, I am hopeful that in the future, works that will guide the sector make new creations and perhaps determine trends will come out from Gaziantep, the capital of carpet.
Who is the board of directors? How long will this board work?
Levent Çepken, H. Erhan Karaman, Tayfun Cevher, Ömer Türk, Pervin Sayar, Selçuk Bekler, Osman Köseler, Naime Çalık, Abuzer Balyemez and Ayşe Kayalar are under the management of our association, which I head.
While forming the management, according to the decision we made, we decided to keep the board of directors in office for 6 months, then after re-election and electing the new board of directors. Because we believe this is a relay race. Thus, everyone will have taken the responsibility.
