Photosynthesizing Dead in Warehouse

Wooden boxes topped with glass cases sit in an empty house that has stood vacant for a long time. The situation seems at once like an isolated art museum, a resource-depleted near future, and a private house under interior construction. Scenes of fruits decaying in the boxes are interspersed with correspondence from a researcher studying the kusōzu, Buddhist paintings that depict nine stages of a decaying corpse and are associated with the practice of realizing impermanence.
Photosynthesizing Dead in Warehouse is a neo-kusōzu in a sense, with its documentation of decay and questions about death. The narration consists of fragments of emails, intertwined with various excerpts from the study of the kusōzu, and contemplates the reason for our symbolic experience of death – or our inability thereof. This work is an essay film about looking at things as they are, making up stories in an attempt to make sense of them, and, as we follow these two axes that cast shadows on each other, what binds and liberates us.

Jeamin Cha is an artist based in Seoul whose practice spans film, performance, installation, and writing. Cha’s work deals with the relationship between the psychological, emotional, and physical. She approaches the reality of individuals through processes of field studies and notes personal interviews of hard-to-articulate experiences. Cha has participated in numerous group exhibitions and festivals and has recently held solo exhibitions at Ilmin Museum of Art, Salzburg Kunstverein, and Kadist San Francisco. Following Autodidact (2014) and Twelve (2016), this is her third participation in Forum Expanded.

Director Jeamin Cha. Cinematography Seongtaek Lee, Dongseok Shin. Editing Jeamin Cha. Sound Design Guenchae Kim. Producers Jeamin Cha, Hyejin Byun. Production company JeaminCha Studio (Seoul, South Korea). With Yuki Konno, Anthony Kim, Unji Go, Yeonhee Bae, Woo Seok Byeon, Eunbin Cho, Heewon Jang, Jayong Lee.

Films: 2013: Fog and Smoke (21 min), Trot, Trio, Waltz (12 min), Chroma-key and Labyrinth (15 min). 2014: Autodidact (10 min, forum expanded 2015), Hysterics (8 min, forum expanded 2015). 2016: OorR (2 min), Hospital (2 min), Twelve (33 min, forum expanded 2017). 2018: On Guard (18 min), Almost One (28 min). 2019: Sound Garden (30 min). 2020: Ellie’s Eye (11 min), Working on the Chairs (10 min). 2022: Maneuver in Place (10 min), Nameless Syndrome (24 min). 2024: Photosynthesizing Dead in Warehouse.