Before I became a climber, I had this preoccupied concept that trust is hard to earn and give in the modern society, even from or to your friends and family. However, after I got into the climbing community, and started to practice climbing, this concept started to get shattered gradually and another possibility emerged. During a climb, a person binds his life with his partner. In order to achieve a hard ascent, a climber has to trust his partner’s ability, judgment and knowledge base. So it is intuitive to think that it must be hard to find a partner and takes years to form this type of bonding and relationship. However, the reality is that normally this form of trust is taken for granted and can be founded fast and automatically in the climbing community, while the situation is often the opposite in  society.  As I proceeded deeper into climbs, I began this project as my journey of aiming to seek out the reasons behind this phenomenon.

The Figure-8 knot is possibly the most used knot in many types of climbing. It is mostly known for being firm, stable and self-locking. In this project, I used three symbolic variations of “The Figure 8” to represent three different aspects and perspectives in which I approach my search. The number 8 resembles the sign of Infinity, and that inspires me of personal pursuit which, in some sense, is relentless and infinite. Thus, drawn by similar personal goals, partners and teams form firm relationships in order to make the pursuit easier and more efficient. A single person can be nothing, which is  a “0”, but two good partners can make infinite things happen. The relationship forms a bond which is like the Figure-8 knot-self-locking. However, last but not the least, nature always poses a great threat and  obstacle which is incredibly hard to tackle on one’s own. One has to do the right things in the limited amount of time which the natural environments grant you. When you are on the wall or the mountains, the “Sand Clock'' starts ticking