Dr Sam Bowker is an Associate Professor in Creative Art at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga. His teaching and research are focussed on art history and visual culture, including object-centred, collaborative, and creative practice research. He also presents public lectures in serial form across a wide range of topics, from Encounters with Islamic Art (2016) and Renaissance Art + Song (2017) at the Museum of the Riverina to Great Southern Land: Australian Art (2019) for the Wagga Wagga Art Gallery, followed by The Art of Everywhere Else (in-person in 2022 and online in 2024). He is also a nationally regarded lecturer for ArtsNational, where he speaks across Australia on the hsitory of art and astronomy, Iranian art, Australian birds and flowers, the Egyptian tentmakers, mosque design and the myths of shadow puppetry.
He is a specialist researcher within the history of Egyptian tentmaker appliqué or khayamiyya. Co-authored with Seif El Rashidi, this work has been published as The Tentmakers of Cairo: Egypt’s Medieval and Modern Applique Craft (American University in Cairo Press, 2018). He was co-editor with Onur Ozturk and Xenia Gazi for Deconstructing the Myths of Islamic Art (Routledge, 2021).
His curated exhibitions have toured regional Australia (‘Elsewhere‘ with Wendy Sharpe and Bernard Ollis, 2018-2020), as well as the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia (Khayamiya: Khedival to Contemporary, 2015-2016) and the Australian National Art Glass Gallery (Windowless Worlds, 2021). His curation highlights narratives through the combination of visual and literary cultures (Have Poets Left a Patch to Sew? 2017).
He also performs creative practice research regarding literary song cycles and Egyptian khayal al-zill shadow theatre for the Green Beetle Company in Wagga Wagga, including the collaborative concerts The Thief of Stars (2020-2021) and The Alchemist’s Jar (2023). These are performed in tandem with musicians and singers, including his wife Melinda Bowker and the Assai Quartet, while Sam serves as the shadow puppeteer and narrator.
He joined Charles Sturt University in 2012, having previously lectured in Art and Design Theory for the Australian National University in the National Gallery of Australia (since 2008). His work before academia was focused on museum and gallery education (or ‘learning and access’) for Australian cultural institutions, including the National Portrait Gallery, National Museum of Australia, and National Library of Australia. His PhD was from the Australian National University (2011), following a Bachelor of Art History and Curatorship with Honours (2004). Both research projects investigated the possibilities and implications of self-portraiture as a mode of communication and curation.
