Death always has its way in haunting us while still alive. South Korea, ranks on top of 34 other countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, CNN reports. Françoise Huguier, a French photographer photographs men and women in Seoul, South Korea dressed in funeral clothing sitting inside wooden coffins while contemplating and confronting their own evils.
The Hyowon Healing Center located in Seoul, South Korea provides a solemn space for people who wanted to confront their own anxieties and suicidal tendencies. These are people who continuously struggle with depression, stress and trauma that may eventually lead to suicidal thoughts. The healing center is where they act out their own funerals.
According to Huguier, participants told her that acting out their funerals are believed to make them feel better and find peace, even if there are no mental health treatment administered in the healing center.
People whom Huguier met in the healing center actually went there because of their doctor's recommendation. They believed that the center offers a new perspective to people with suicidal tendencies through "experimental death in order to better appreciate life."
The participants, in their funeral dresses had their portraits taken in the same fashion in a traditional funeral and after reading their farewells to the group, they get into coffins and have the lids closed as they stay there for 10 minutes.
Huguier finds this unlikely ritual a "uniquely South Korean experience."
Huguier said that people would go to a psychologist than live this experience. She also does not believe this unlikely method of envisioning one's funeral will reduce suicides. The photographer felt like it is some sort of a business designed to make money. But inconclusively, it might indeed help people who believe in it, she said.
"People I met told me it helped them to feel better...they do believe this is an answer, but I don't," Huguier said.
