Hannah Dear

My brother likes green apples, not red apples

Hannah Dear is a writer based in Essex and London who writes about art, culture and politics.

Her current work examines the post-climate change/Anthropocene condition and the development of sustainable, local communities vis-à-vis issues such as modern-colonisation, capitalism, urbanism and geopolitical conflict. Her work also takes the form of publication and curation. In 2020 she co-curated Interface London’s 2020 ‘And It Was Good’ exhibition.

About work:

‘My brother likes green apples, not red apples’ is inspired by my younger brother who is severely autistic. His relationship with food was already strained given his disability, and COVID-19 has restricted his diet even further. I’ve never spoken about ASD in my work before. As a sister, I feel a resistance towards bringing autism into another aspect of my life. There is a struggle in balancing finding your own identity whilst supporting your sibling, when that sibling is disabled. 

However, when I think about it (which I have had a lot of time to do recently), my brother really has informed so many of my life choices and interests. Given the current pandemic, I decided to challenge my opposition to sentimentality, to push past the embarrassment I feel about most of my personal writing by putting a poem online. 

I am further encouraged by the numerous political activists and disability activists which I have been engaging with since the UK’s lockdown on March 23rd . Society's most vulnerable groups are those who will struggle to access food. I want to see systemic change because I feel anxious for my brother and anxious about what it will mean to one day be his primary carer in a post-corona world.