Hassan was my friend more than my younger brother. We shared everything, told each other everything, we never kept secrets from each other. We respected each other’s opinions; of course, we had different opinions, but at the end of the day, we stuck together.
I felt he was unique from when he was about 10 years old. It was when we played together — though he was very content with what he had, and never complained — he wanted to create different things, he got bored of the rules of the game and wanted to change them.
Our father died when I was 13, so my elder brother and I had to work and Hassan continued his education. In his early secondary school years, he drew and painted, and was dubbed the ‘school’s artist’ by the art teacher. Before he graduated from school, Hassan had the opportunity to work at one of the ministries or with the police, both options which provided good salaries. I remember we sat in a restaurant and he asked me what I thought; I told him he needed to decide for himself and he said he didn’t want to be in uniform. At the time, the government funded art study abroad and he applied to universities in Italy, France and the UK. My mother insisted that he work, that art doesn’t pay, that it wouldn’t help the family, that it isn’t a job. I didn’t have to defend him, he did that well on his own.
In 1979, when he got the acceptance from the Byam Shaw School of Art (now part of Central Saint Martins), he took it immediately. I used to visit him regularly. Those days were fun and beautiful, I remember them so well. One of the places he took me to was the then-called Tate Gallery, where Joseph Beuys had a solo show. Hassan gave me a list of places I should visit while he went to classes, and when he came home, we’d talk about what I saw. Those discussions gave me a lot of insight into the way he thought. I always say he was my art teacher.
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