Existence is a classical philosophical question, which surrounds and questions the meaning of human beings. It clarifies the difference between how people "survive" and “exist”, while we face it. This question is essential to human lives; meanwhile, it's also what I mainly concern in my work. Under the modern mechanized and collective living/life context, people's mental states universally emerge mind emptiness, in which people will not feel their own existence although they are alive. When people fall into this numb state, the rest of feelings mostly close to them are anxiety and alienation. These emotions are considered to be greatly significant in retrieving the existence of human beings.

The thesis explored my artwork ideas and works through the topic of the existence. It was mainly divided into three chapters. The first chapter discussed the anxiety of the existence and the meaning of anxiety itself through the perspective of existential philosophy and psychology; thus, it proposed the artistic expression related to the anxiety of the existence as reference. The second chapter explored the significance of the alienation, which existed in my self-portraits. Then, it proposed Brecht's theatrical theory "estrangement effect" to illustrate how alienation itself inspired me more specific art making techniques. The last chapter proposed "metaphor" to explain exactly how the methods worked. In the first section, it explained the concept and principle of metaphors. Then, it took my installation works as practical cases to reveal how I dealt with the question of the existence by metaphors.