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Terence Carter and Lara Dunston meet the artist reshaping the old Jewish Quarter of Damascus
MUSTAFA ALI IS not the kind of person you expect to see on a Power 100 list. A diminutive, ginger-bearded man with a big smile and twinkling eyes, he looks exactly like what he is – an artist. A sculptor, in fact. And yet Arabian Business magazine named him one of the Arab world’s most influential cultural figures two years running, thanks in large part to his direct access to Syrian president Basher Al-Assad (the two men meet, apparently, on a regular basis).
This ability to make his voice heard in high places has cast Ali as a key player in the rejuve-nation of a neglected corner of Damascus.
The former Jewish Quarter is squeezed into the southeast of the Syrian capital’s Old City, and it has none of the souqs, shops, cafés and restaurants that fill the lively Muslim and Christian quarters to the north and west. Instead, its labyrinthine lanes have long been lined with badly dilapidated buildings, many too rundown for inhabitation – but this is changing.
Two years ago the high-end boutique Talisman Hotel opened in the neighbourhood, and later this year it will be joined by a new, super-luxurious 80-room hotel in a renovated Ottoman palace.
It’s widely acknowledged that the catalyst for the new developments in the Jewish Quarter is Mustafa Ali.
The artist bought an old courtyard house in the area in March 2004, and a few months later opened it up to the public as a gallery and cultural centre. Other artists followed, colonising empty properties and putting them to use as ateliers; there are now some 40 painters, photographers, sculptors and ceramicists, all within a few minutes’ walk of each other.
When we arrive at Ali’s splendid 500-year-old courtyard house, several photographers – from Morocco and Syria – are hanging out in the cool liwan, chatting and smoking. The sculptor appears from his cluttered office to greet everyone, immediately offering us cold drinks, tea and cigarettes. There is a constant stream of people calling at the house throughout the day and late into the evening – artists, musicians, actors and sundry intellectuals, as well as tourists, ambassadors and visiting dignitaries. Some come to view Ali’s work, some drop in hoping to meet the man himself, and some simply come to get a peek at the interior of an old Damascene house.
For his part, Ali encourages people to use the house (including caves under the courtyard) for meetings, workshops, classes and press conferences. In addition he hosts a regular programme of activities and events, including concerts, film screenings and dance performances.
“I want to change people’s perceptions of Syria, especially the perceptions formed by Western media,” says Ali. “People think it’s dangerous to come here. Many people have no idea there are artists in Syria and that we have such cultural activities.”
In recent months the sculptor has been working with Basher Al-Assad on a strategy to formally develop the quarter into a vibrant arts area. The pair are hoping to offer scholarships to foreign artists, writers and filmmakers to bring them to Syria to produce works that might change notions of the country overseas. There are plans to develop a small park for cultural activities, and Ali hopes to persuade the authorities to close the whole of the Old City to traffic, establishing car parks outside the walls and introducing electric vehicles as alternative public transport.
All these activities would be full-time occupations for an arts administrator, a cultural ambassador and a town planner, but Ali remains first and foremost an artist. “I started to sculpt properly at the age of 15,” he recalls. “I made a portrait of another child in plaster, and this was my first real work. I had dreamt about being a sculptor from the age of 13 or 14 when I went to the Fine Arts Institute at Lattakia.”
Ali’s first exhibition in 1988 was of a bronze sculpture and he became renowned for his work in metal, but these days he combines it with wood. “Bronze is such a noble, strong material – I like the way it reflects the light and the way it changes colour – but wood adds warmth.”
Ali takes us on a tour of the galleries, pointing out some of his favourite pieces, only occasionally interrupted by phone calls – he’s organising an oud and qanun concert in the courtyard that evening. “This small piece is probably my favourite,” he says, indicating a tiny bronze. He’s called the sculpture The Balance, and it consists of a figure of a man with another figure on his head. “I like this piece because it’s based on big ideas – it’s about finding the right balance in life.”
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