Minus plus multiply

4 MINUTES

A woman must break apart to make herself whole in this surreal, stunning animation

‘There is a negative space in everyone’s soul.’

In her acclaimed short Minus Plus Multiply, the London-based Taiwanese illustrator and filmmaker Chu-Chieh Lee mines her experiences of anxiety and self-discovery to craft a surreal animated world. Influenced by Henry Moore’s sculpture Mother and Child: Egg Form (1977), Lee’s abstract animation features a female character attempting to find respite in a series of containers as she struggles to adapt to their ever-changing boundaries. Throughout the piece, the material character of ceramics – malleable and brittle across their lifespans – becomes a metaphor for personal fragmentation and transformation. Blending eclectic animation styles with sparse, poetic narration and immersive sound design, Lee crafts an unusually evocative and sensorially rich exploration of self.

THE SELF EMOTIONS IDENTITY

Director: Chu-Chieh Lee

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