未知死，焉知生 Being-Towards-Death

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未知死，焉知生
Being-Towards Death

「以生為脊，以死為尻。」生死一體，當我們逐漸察覺自身為奔向死亡的存在時，該如何自處？

此作品有兩本書。第一本〈未知死〉以小巧的尺寸和模糊的影像，帶出死亡與我們無關：死亡未至，我們沒受其傷害；死亡來到，我們已不再存在，遑論體驗到傷害。第二本〈焉知生〉則透過生活細節的圖片，表達活著就能賦予不同事物價值，決定它們對自己的意義。

我們每天朝死亡邁步，面對抵步之必然，我們無能為力。能做的，只有選擇前進的方式。

Death is inevitable. As the only animal that became conscious of this fact 150,000 years ago, human beings have developed different mental and behavioural defence mechanisms to manage the terror of death — denial, avoidance, or a change in perspective.

Martin Heidegger believes we are “being-towards-death”, while one could only live authentically by confronting and making meaning out of their own death. The concept of this work is to oppose and juxtapose the notions of life and death through the use of visuals of everyday life, implying that death is not directly people’s concerns, but life needs to be recognised as a celebration of details. This work does not aim to provide answers on the notion of death and life, but a different way of seeing.

BOOK 1 — 未知死

It's natural to fear death, yet a person and death are never present at the same time. Besides, despite the effort, we humans are unable to understand the essence of death. “未知死” ‬is a tiny book aimed at illustrating “death does not concern us”. The idea is illustrated through the book’s tiny size — a metaphor of how little death matters to us. To convey our inability to understand death, the book is designed as an object of expression rather than a readable book. It includes a collection of images extracted from book 2 “焉知生”, with effects added to make the images look unrecognisable. It would not make much sense reading it, just like glimpsing into death — you would not gain or understand anything.

BOOK 2 — 焉知生

“焉知生” aimed at emphasising “what matters is where we choose to assign values into for our finite life”. Contrasting with “未知死”, “焉知生” is a large book. The books’ difference in sizes is a metaphor for the differences in how life and death matter to us. 焉知生 is a readable book that people could interact with, just as how people could interact with the world while being alive. The book contains a collection of images about everyday life: little things, mundane things, details — something that could be recognised and understood. The number of pages is 72 — a round-up number of the average life expectancy at birth.

THE TWO BOOKS — 未知死，焉知生

The two books could be read together by placing “未知死” inside the hole of “焉知生”, revealing the whole picture of the images. Reading them together is a metaphor of acknowledging death as part of life and knowing coming to terms with death is the only way to live authentically. Reading them separately can be interpreted as a way of living that only emphasises on living experiences or avoiding death (ignoring the hole in “焉知生”) and viewing death as an unknown.