One of my most treasured friends is Turkish. What struck me when we met, was how naturally we gravitated to one another, and how she seemed to have none of the prejudices I would have expected a Turkish girl to have about a Greek girl. I was raised with a narrative, mostly through text books, and elders, that focused only on our rivalry. Buket’s history, the lens through which it was seen and taught, is different to mine. Needless to say, we became fast friends, and two decades later, share a mutual love and admiration for one another that defies stereotypical images. This week, I learned about the work of Fahrelnissa Zeid and immediately thought about my friend, Buket.  Zeid was one of the first women to go to art school in Istanbul, and is widely seen as one of the most important female artists of the 20th century. Her extraordinary abstract paintings with kaleidoscopic patterns reflect her many influences, from Islamic and Byzantine art to pointillism and abstraction. Please watch this short film if you have a moment. I found it rich with eccentricity, warmth and colour. “She was the east and the west, combined in harmony.”