In/Tension with Sin Wai Kin
“The carrier bag model of a story is something that holds things together, many different pieces of information, different characters, different things that might even contract each other,” explains Toronto-born, London-based Sin Wai Kin, “and holds them together for consideration. This is definitely a model of the stories I’m trying to tell, because carrier bags can also hold people.”
In episode 10 of the In/Tension podcast, Price interviews London-based non-binary multimedia artist Sin Wai Kin. The two explore topics including speech acts and their power, using personal experience to communicate universal messages, and what inspired the artist to incorporate drag into their practice.
Sin Wai Kin, photography by Holly Falconer
Sin Wai Kin’s artworks question idealised images, bodies, and the collective gaze through the use of speculative fiction. Desire, identification, and objectification are all challenged through methods of fantasy storytelling. For Wai Kin, speculative fiction within the mediums of performance, moving image, writing, and print not only challenges, but acts to interrupt the standard processes of desire, identification, and objectification. Self-identifying as non-binary, Wai Kin often performs in drag in order to confront and deconstruct misogyny and racism in and outside of queer communities. Drag is strategically deployed as a practice of conscious embodiment that questions heteronormative and socially accepted idealized images within established systems of representation and looking. Deeply personal accounts of looking and wanting are transformed into fantasy narratives that illustrate the universally uneasy experience of unbelonging that occurs when social, physical, mental, and spiritual bodies are not aligned.
Sin Wai Kin, It’s Always You (still), 2021 © the artist. Image courtesy of the artist and Blindspot Gallery.
Wai Kin’s artworks have been exhibited worldwide, including in institutions like the Centre d’Art Contemporain, 2023; Tai Kwun Contemporary, 2022; Para Site, 2022; Somerset House, 2022; Tate Modern, 2017; Serpentine Galleries, 2019; The British Museum, 2022; ICA LA, 2022; The Guggenheim, 2022; Shedhalle, 2021; Tank Museum, 2020; MOCA TO, 2019; and the MOMENTA biennale de l’image, 2019.
Sin Wai Kin, A Dream of Wholeness in Parts (still), 2021 © the artist. Courtesy the artist, Chi-Wen Gallery, Taipei and Soft Opening, London. Produced by Chi-Wen Productions, Taipei. Supported by Hayward Gallery Touring for British Art Show 9
In addition to being shortlisted for the prestigious Turner Prize in 2022, they have recieved the B3 BEN Award for Best Immersive and Time Based Art in 2021 as well as numerous grants. Their work is held in the collections of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Baltimore Museum of Art, British Museum, and M+, among others.
In/Tension, produced by The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, is a limited podcast series of intimate, thought-provoking and accessible conversations with emerging, mid-career, and established contemporary visual artists across Canada. In/Tension aims to shed light on the breadth of the Canadian contemporary art scene and provide a platform for diverse artistic voices to dive deep into their creative intentions and facets of their practice.
This project is supported by a Digital Now grant from the Canada Council for the Arts.
