EMMA COUSIN (and Jean-Paul Sartre)

Emma Cousin selects the seminal novel 'Nausea' by Jean-Paul Sartre. Published in 1938, it describes Antoine Roquentin's existential crisis which plays out in the library, streets and cafes of Bouville, which literally means 'mud town'. In a world devoid of God, lacking in meaning, Antoine shrinks further and further inside himself as he struggles in his search for purpose, finally deciding the best use of his life is to write a really critical book. Like 'Nausea' I guess ! In our conversation, we focus on Emma's post-lockdown solo show at Goldsmith's CCA, though her ideas - from biology to geometry - and her approach to working across drawing, painting, curating and podcasting, encompass her whole studio practice.    0:00-0:30 Summary of 'Nausea', fluid consciousness, isolation, observation, madness, body, dangling arms, a mouth as thin of a dead snake, spreading cheeks, vomit, nausea, seat as a dead donkey, natural states, the shortcomings of the autodidact, humanism, experiences, projectile vomiting, experimentation in colour, shift, change, the future, elitism, Rembrandt 0:30-1:10 Emma's art practice - contemporary dance, verbing reaching, showing an idea, actively working something out, bodily boundaries, breasts, skin, grounding of figures, 'New Dirt', colour, background as a surround,  'Wash your Hands' for Ambit magazine, wall drawing, social classes, 2D & 3D composition, drawing, drawing, drawing, 'Trigonometry', 'Flower Moon' animation for exhibition, failing meditation, the physical highs and memories thru gardening 1:10-1:20 other Emma stuff - Morandi, folk music, 'Bread and Jam', 'Chats in Lockdown' podcast, activism, what Emma's reading now!   EMMA COUSIN emmacousin.info   BOOKS & WRITERS & THINKERS (get ready for a long list!) Albert Camus 'The Myth of Sisyphus' 1942 Anne Carson Derek Jarman 'Modern Nature : Journals 1989-1990' 2018 Eula Biss 'On Immunity : An Inoculation' 2014  Elias Canetti 'Earwitness : Fifty Characters' 1974 & 'Crowds and Power' 1960 Edwin A Abbott 'Flatland : A Romance of Many Dimensions' 1884 Friedrich Nietzsche Gregory Bateson 'Steps to an Ecology of Mind' 1972 Honoré de Balzac JG Ballard 'High Rise' 1975 Joanna Pocock 'Surrender : The Call of the American West' 2019 John Berger 'A Painter of our Time' 1958 Maurice Merleau-Ponty 'The Phenomenology of Perception' 1945 René Descartes Richard Power 'The Overstory' 2018 Samuel Beckett Sergei Eisenstein 'On Disney' 1986 Simone de Beauvoir Thomas Mann 'Death in Venice' 1912 William Petter Blatty 'The Exorcist' 1971   OTHER ARTISTS Amy Sillman Andrea V Wright Appau Jnr Boakye-Yiadom Georgio Morandi Hardeep Pandhal John Cage, composer, artist, music theorist Lindsey Mendick Mark Morris, dancer and choreographer Michael Tippett, composer Paul Carey-Kent, art critic, curator Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn William Blake   PODCAST 'Chats in Lockdown' hosted by Emma Cousin