The Treaty of Tianjin (1858) designated Niuzhuang (Newchwang) as a treaty port. Yet when the port officially opened in 1861, the British relocated it downstream to Mògōuyíng (present-day Yingkou), citing “better river conditions. ” In the years that followed, official archives, postmarks, and maritime networks continued to use the name “Newchwang” to refer to this new port.
As a result, the opening of Newchwang became a historical moment that did occur, but not at its original site. This produced a long-standing geographical misdesignation in which the actual Niuzhuang gradually faded from maps and historical reference, while another port inherited its name and narrative.
This work is based on the actual star positions of the night of April 3, 1861, The artist photographed the glimmering surface of the Hamburg harbor, then extracted and rearranged the light points to form the star chart of that night. The light sources in the image are therefore not stars; they come from another body of water, yet fall upon a historical coordinate that has been relocated and renamed.
The overlap of light from two different ports produces a subtle misalignment—visual and historical. In the gap between them, the obscuring of history, the power of naming, and the position from which one sees intertwine. This re-stitched sky resembles an astronomical chart yet gestures toward a perceptual and historical illusion. The real and the designated locations overlap, and an absent gaze is re-situated through the faint glimmer of another shore.
Detail pictures:
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