After many days trying to set-up an interview at the Ruoshui Mental Health Clinic, which resides within a commercial apartment building in Shenyang, China, I finally received a call from the owner on December 12 who granted me the access and opportunity to photograph one of their “death experience therapy” patients.

An hour later, I found myself in the so-called “death experience room”, a 10-square-metre room with nothing but a coffin on the floor. On the wall there was a poster of Jesus holding a newborn baby illuminated with gloomy blue lights. My first impression? Quite intimidating.

According to 50-year-old therapist Mr. Tang Yulong, the clinic opened in 2009 and since then there have been more than a thousand people who have done the death experience therapy. The therapy costs 2000 yuan ($320) and usually lasts 4 to 5 hours, during the duration of which the patient is required to lie in a coffin while his/her relatives read “epitaphs” or give speeches nearby. The patient also needs to write down his/her feelings and share with therapists and family. Mr. Tang said that many of them burst into tears when they are “resurrected.” He believes it is an extreme but efficient method to make people realize the value of their lives.

Then I met 42-year-old Mr. Yang, who had booked his therapy appointment for that day. During the psychological preparation talk, I learned that Yang had lost his mother when he was only 11 months old. Lacking maternal love and constantly being insecure in his childhood made him unable to cope with the pressure of work and daily life, and thus he became profoundly pessimistic.

With his wife’s accompaniment, he followed the therapist’s instructions and got in the coffin while the funeral music began. Maybe it was the music – I found myself completely absorbed in the atmosphere, and felt somewhat sad during the entire process. Mr. Yang told me later that for a few seconds he really felt as if he were dead inside the coffin, and his desire to keep on living became stronger. And when he heard his wife reading a letter to him, he cried. He said that it was so strange that when he was “dead,” he actually felt closer to his wife and loved ones.

As a photographer, I could only imagine what it would be like lying inside the coffin and being “dead.” But I have to admit, even as a witness, I felt easier coming out of that gloomy room, as if some of the pressure of my own was somehow being lifted from me.

I was totally amazed when I first saw the exhibition of the plastinated human body specimens. I couldn’t believe that inside our human skin we all look like that! After visiting the exhibition several times, my photographer instinct pushed me to do a story on it, focusing on the production process of the specimens.

On September 13, I finally received permission to visit the workshops of Dalian Hoffen Bio-Technique Co., Ltd. I was very honored as according to the founder and chairman of the company Dr. Sui Hongjin, I was the first photographer allowed to photograph the whole process of the making of the specimens.

Founded in 2004, Dalian Hoffen Bio-Technique Co., Ltd. specializes in the production, preservation and exhibition of plastinated biotic specimens of human and animals. Their workshops and the Mysterious Life Museum are located some 50 km (31 miles) from the center of Dalian city, in the northeastern Chinese province of Liaoning.

As I was walked down the hallway inside the company where dozens of specimens of horses, pigs, and dogs were displayed, excitement and nervousness rose rapidly as I wondered when and where I could see human specimens. Soon after, Dr Sui led me into 200 square meter (yard) room, in which employees in small groups of two to four people were working on their partially-done plastinated human body specimens. I started taking pictures immediately. They peeled off the skin and cut out the nerve tissues, the blood vessels, the muscles and the bones. Apparently the employees’ work needed their full concentration, as none of them even bothered to take a glance at me. They all looked peaceful and calm though they were slicing into real human bodies.

Then I entered the room where the specimens were placed in a giant oven to harden after the cutting progress was complete. This process usually takes 30 to 50 days. The strong smell of burning meat in the room made me sick; in that moment I decided not to eat any meat for as long as I can.

I spent two days trying to photograph every aspect of the production of plastinated specimens. There was a workshop where the bodies were dipped in glue for about 50 days before any other process; the core step of plastination. And a workshop that froze the bodies and used machines to cut transparent body slices. All of this was so new to me that before I even realized, there were already nearly a thousand pictures on my cameras.

Dr Sui accompanied me throughout my two-day visit. He was friendly and helpful and gave me lots of freedom to shoot as well as lots of information on whatever I was photographing. He told me that the human bodies and animal carcasses were collected from medical universities, and that making each specimen took 4 people working on it for between 8 to 12 months.

Several days after the trip, it was still hard to believe what I had witnessed. I started to feel stranger and stranger about my own body, no wonder it is called “God’s masterpiece”.