coordinates
I cannot believe that the rock is simply sitting there in silence.
When perceived this way, I find myself wanting to understand the phenomenon occurring between the self and the rock, and I have captured this inquiry through photography. The photographs displayed here are fragments of the world that manifested in 2025, while climbing walls alone.
2025 was a year largely spent facing the rock in solitude—free climbing, rope soloing, and a 7,000-meter peak. Regardless of the style, I discovered that surrendering the initiative of my movement to the rhythm of my body, in resonance with the contours of the rock, leads to a certain world. In the midst of this, I suddenly look up at the wall. There are moments when the wall seems to surge forward, closer and closer, as if I am shrinking indefinitely. It resembles a dream I often had as a child when I had a fever—a dream where space expands infinitely, and I become smaller and smaller in comparison. In the process of being enveloped by space, a faint yet certain joy blends into the fear and awe. It is strange. Where does this inversion of perception come from?
Perhaps it is a transformation of perception that occurs in the transition from the active intent of climbing to a state tinged with passivity—where movement conforms to the shape of the rock. The way we grasp the surrounding world does not remain locked within self-centric coordinates; rather, it detaches freely, drifting and floating toward environment-centric ones through a dialogic structure. The self-evident nature of coordinates once fixed to the self collapses, shifting into various spaces "in-between" depending on our connection with the world. Where these two perspectives intersect, a metacognitive awareness emerges.
In that moment, I am an alien cast onto another planet.