Some neuroscientists who study death use the phrase “realer than real” to describe near-death experiences. This phrase comes from the descriptions of near-death experiences by some people who claim to have “experienced” death. But can the living really “experience” death? Is the explanation of death from fantasy or reality? Or the so-called near-death experience is just a moment before death, which has nothing to do with death itself.

The living can only explain death in the meaning of death rather than death itself. Or to the living, only what death brings is important. We need to constantly depict the edge of death and feel the shape of death. It is not what death is, but what it means to die as a living person. Pure reason cannot explain the afterlife beyond experience. Maybe death exists, as Heidegger said, we have been dying since we were born. Maybe death does not exist. No one can prove death, and no one can prove that there is an ultimate end in this world. Why do people fantasize about death? Where does the desire and fear of death come from?

Fantasizing about death can almost completely change a person’s attitude towards life. People who fantasize about reincarnation choose to endure more suffering, people who fantasize about hell begin to fear sin, and people who fantasize about nothingness only see the present. The living need death, and need death as an internal driving force, so the living fantasizes about death, or even fantasize that death does not exist.

Published in 2023
11 cm x 15 cm
46 pages

Showcased as part of Jimei x Arles: Travelling Photobook Showcase at the 9th SIPF Photobook Showcase

Artist Biography:

Zejun Li, curently studying in the Department of Photography at Rochester institute of Technology, His works have been shortlisted for the 5th 1839 Photography Award, Space on Paper -Jimei X Arles Book Exhibition, Draft 18 magazine.