The 'Hell is Other People' collection takes inspiration from Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1944 existentialist play ‘Huis Clos’. Born in France on June 21, 1905, Jean-Paul Sartre was a writer, novelist, philosopher and a political activist. Known as one of the most influential famous philosophers of his century and a key figure in the existentialism philosophical movement. Sartre believed that as long as we experience 'the look' the ever present gaze of others we cannot be agents of our own lives. In the end there is no exit, no escaping each other and no escaping the truth.
We created a zine to celebrate the launch that explores these ideas in greater depth and includes extracts from Huis Clos.
Here's a little peek inside...
Sartre once said "existence preceds essence" - a philosophical idea that suggests a person's nature is not predetermined at birth, rather shaped by experience and actions, giving meaning to our lives by existing and behaving in a certain way. In Huis Clos (translated to No Exit), Sartre pushes this idea to its extreme, showing how the torture of looking back on our past is a form of hell in itself.
The play begins with three lost souls; Joseph Garcin, Inez Serrano and Estelle Rigault who are all locked inside a mysterious living room, expecting something dark to torture them for the rest of time; whereas in actual fact the punishment is them being locked in a room together, slowly becoming each others torturers.
Although Huis Clos is filled with an atmosphere of dread it was a huge hit with the public, dealing in the same themes of paranoia and collective guilt taken up in other Sartre texts and classic French films of that era. The play proposes that "Hell is Other People" rather than a place created by God, there is no escaping each other and there's no escaping the truth.
