A Bedouin guide in Egypt’s White Desert in Farafra features in one of Jenny Bowker's quilts. “People always ask me how long these quilts take to make," she tells us. "And what they’re really acknowledging and admiring is that I was willing to spend as much as two years on the work. There are things that you can do with fabric, which make it more meaningful, more evocative, more interesting than a painting.” Photo / David Paterson

These quilts tell tales about people in the Middle East and take years to make



Jenny Bowker was 30 when she first visited the Middle East. Forty years later and the Australian quilt-maker remains as captivated and inspired by the region as she was when she arrived. Bowker’s quilts – vast, colour-soaked things that buzz with life – depict scenes from the many countries where she has lived with her husband, an Australian diplomat. A Bedouin guide in Egypt; an elderly man sitting on a cobbled street in Damascus; a burqa found at a stall in Amman – Bowker celebrates the ordinary and the forgotten.

Her work, though, is far from ordinary. Last month, Bowker was named as an officer in the Order of Australia in the 2018 Queen’s birthday honours for services to Australia-Middle East cultural relations and for her role in preserving traditional crafts. “My husband came in with this crested envelope and I actually thought it was for him,” she says from her home in Canberra. “I was gobsmacked. It’s just extraordinary to get that appreciation from your country. It’s like a great big pat on the back.”

From a young age, Bowker displayed a remarkable talent for working with fabrics. When she was just 10 years old, she learnt how to sew. “I remember my mother showing me how to make a dress and the next day I made one by myself,” she says.

Later in life, Bowker also made her daughter’s wedding dress. Despite this creativity, however, she pursued a career in science and it wasn’t until 1997, when she and her husband moved to Jerusalem, that she began to make quilts. From then on, wherever she happened to be in the Middle East, Bowker would wander the bustling streets and markets with her camera looking for subjects for her work. “Often these people are poor and may not have seen a photograph since their wedding day,” she says. “It was always a blast taking the pictures back to them. It helped me to become accepted.”

Finding her way in Syria 

Bowker has always relished getting lost in new countries. It was not only a way of discovering the local culture, it also helped her to establish an identity in foreign lands.

“Before I arrived in Syria as a diplomat’s wife, I had my own professional career. I went to work in the morning and didn’t get back until late,” she says. “Suddenly I found myself just floating around and I couldn’t speak the language. It was strange. It was as if I had disappeared as a person.

“I found that by going out in the car and getting lost and then having to find my way home, I made friends and discovered interesting places. You [should] always buy your lemons from the lady on the corner, never from the supermarket, and your strawberries from the little boy with the cart. That way, you become known locally and create a network in your area.”

For a long time, Bowker focused on archaeology and abstract designs for her quilts. She was always particularly transfixed by Syria. “I loved the tiles, the little alleyways, the old buildings almost touching across the streets of the old city,” she says. “The shops were like little jewelled caverns on the sides of cobbled streets, just absolutely gorgeous.” But she decided to start incorporating the people she met in the Middle East after a student she was teaching in America told her: “You couldn’t turn your back on those Arabs – they’d stab you.” Bowker was appalled. “I was so offended for my dear friends,” she says. “They are good people, kind, generous and affectionate at every level of society. [Through my quilts], I wanted people to look into the eyes of some of the people I knew – who were not well off – and see that they were gentle.”

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Honouring the tentmaker artists of Cairo

One of Bowker’s more recent projects also set out to address an injustice. On the Khan Khayamiya – or Street of the Tentmakers – in Cairo, hundreds of people could once be found stitching intricate designs onto fabrics, which were originally used for lining tents. It is, according to Bowker, “brilliantly coloured appliqué”. Now, though, there are less than 50. Machine-made synthetics have devastated the industry.

“The art is dying,” Bowker says. “There is the feeling of a loss of something really valuable, with a very old history. I realised that these fabrics needed to be seen by people who understand how much effort is involved in work such as this.”

Since 2007, Bowker has helped to stage dozens of exhibitions (where the tentmakers’ work is also sold) around the world, including three in Dubai. “When the tentmakers returned to Cairo after these exhibitions of their work, you could almost see everyone walking taller,” Bowker says.  

So what is it about fabrics and the art of quilt-making that Bowker finds so powerful? “When you look at a painting, you can get a sense of reflection from the image. The image is very much on the surface,” she says. “But a quilt implies time and effort in a different way. There are ripples and bumps and an almost three dimensional feel to the surface. And they absorb colour, which adds depth. When you display a quilt, people reach out straight away and want to touch it.

“People always ask me how long these quilts take to make. And what they’re really acknowledging and admiring is that I was willing to spend as much as two years on the work. There are things that you can do with fabric, which make it more meaningful, more evocative, more interesting than a painting.”

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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

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