Raihan and Bianca

This beautifully designed website has been created by my old university buddy Tristan Hanlon, so I am forever grateful to him for helping me draw all my projects together. In fact, how this website came about is down to nothing more than serendipitous circumstance.  Tragically, in 2014 our mutual philosophy friend Raihan Kadri passed away from a ruptured brain aneurysm at the age of 36. Although our communication had somewhat dwindled in recent years we occasionally wrote to one another and we last met in Brighton, with Tristan, in 2009 when he came over from the States. A few months ago, around the time of Raihan’s birthday, I randomly decided to Google him and came across a moving and illuminating article about him and his childhood written by his older brother. I duly sent the article to Tristan and that sparked a spate of correspondence which resulted in the creation of this website! So, it seems only fitting to dedicate this website to Raihan, especially when considering that he mentioned me in the dedication of his book ‘Reimagining Life: Philosophical Pessimism and the Revolution of Surrealism‘ (2011). Not only were we good friends, not only did he kindly type up my philosophy essays for me (often in a semi-drunken and/or hung-over stupor) but he was also highly influential in my life. We used to spend hours chatting together on the floor of his room – him dressed in his characteristic tailcoat and messily plastered in white make-up – analysing, debating, arguing, laughing, trying to make sense of our philosophy lectures and trying to make sense of life, in general. He set me on the course to an adult existence immersed in critical reflection and defiance of convention, he lived his life that way, and I feel honoured to have known him and been privy to his eccentric world of courageous, infectious, unapologetic individualism and surreal exuberance.