On Sail revisits the 19th-century history of tea, opium, and unequal exchange by re-embodying The Treaty of Nanking through the slow, tactile act of embroidery. Stitched onto a piece of sailcloth — a material shaped by wind, weather, and movement—the treaty’s fragmented text becomes a surface where memory, labour, and translation encounter each other.

This work unfolds across two sites: East India Dock Basin in London and the Yangpu Riverside in Shanghai. These locations mark the two ends of a historical route once travelled by ships carrying tea and opium. In London, the artist embroidered the Chinese text; in Shanghai, the English text will be completed. The two languages, divided and displaced, mirror the asymmetry embedded in the treaty itself and the histories it set into motion.

As wind moves the cloth and light shifts across its surface, the sail becomes a living archive—one that responds, trembles, and breathes. The act of stitching reopens a space to question: How do we touch a document that has shaped the distance between two cities?

On Sail invites viewers not to revisit the past, but to encounter the ways history continues to move between us.