MEASURING ABSENCE

We sought to reconstruct the histories surrounding Sung Wong Toi — a vanished hill in Hong Kong where the Song dynasty emperors once took refuge. 

Drawing from sources gathered by curatorial researcher Chris Wan — from ancient texts and paintings to maps, surveys, and archival photographs documenting the hill’s removal – we positioned and synchronized these images into digital space, molding an abstract topography into detail. A new landscape soon emerged, untouched by decades of land reclamation and development.

At first, we aimed to reconstruct this hill and its histories with forensic precision. But we soon realized the futility of our efforts. After all, more than eight centuries stood between us, separated by countless dynasties and seasons. The expanse of time made such efforts not only difficult, but unattainable. 

Instead, we turned to another kind of excavation – one rooted not in certainty, but centuries of shared imagination. Between the real and the imagined, something else began to surface: the natural flow of history. 

Truth took shape within the margins of error, in the aberrations of our sources – not as record but as a current in motion, suspended between memory and dream. Now a reconstructed topography, the hill became a site where ancient narratives, colonial infrastructure, and the present converge through conceptual inquiry. 

Drawings and models became memory devices that gave form to new imaginaries — questioning the relationship between archive, artifact, model, and image.

Justin Hui

西元1277年，蒙古鐵騎南下，一支末代王族的船隊在如今的香港海域劃出一道隱密的流亡軌跡 —他們藏身梅窩密林，蟄居聖山（後刻「宋王臺」），又敗退荃灣灘頭。次年，兄長病逝大嶼山，七歲趙昺於此登基，為南宋末帝。1279年崖山海戰，陸秀夫負幼主投海，劃下王朝終章。

我們以歷史地圖與照片為起點，在三維空間中重構宋代「官富場」（今九龍至觀塘）的海岸線，敘寫一段未被詳述的歷史。這並非復原，而是一座「記憶裝置」—讓被抹除的地形重新刺入當代空間。

數字試圖錨定消逝的事物：填海炸毀的聖山，322,275立方米的地質負片；宋皇臺原石，111.7立方米的孤存，在現代城市的度量中位移了300呎。

測算的過程本身就是一種辯證——我們試圖用精確的數據捕捉歷史，卻在過程中不斷驗證其不可還原的本質。模型與照片無法完全吻合：2毫米的配準偏移，地圖投影間的橢圓參數誤差，正源自時間自身的斷層。我們所追索的「真實」，或許只是不同誤差之間的相對關係，這恰是歷史最真實的褶皺。

所有真實，最終只能以誤差的形式顯現。

孫彥

2025

Project Sung Wong Toi is initiated by Curatorial Researcher Chris Wan in collaboration with Sun Yan.

Research Residency and Open Studio was held at CRASH space, Hong Kong