To coincide with Taipei Dangdai 2022, Chi-Wen Gallery presents two works by Turner Prize nominee Sin Wai Kin. Informed in equal measure by the imaginative possibilities of drag and speculative fiction, Sin’s practice spans performance, moving image, and texts. In their work, the artist takes on a series of metamorphic identities that queer the traditional binaries of masculine and feminine, authenticity and performance, fact and fiction.

Following its premiere performance at Chi-Wen Gallery in 2019, If I had the words to tell you we wouldn’t be here now (2019) was presented in two successive versions as part of Meetings on Art at the 58th Venice Biennale (2019), and Age of You at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto (2019). In each iteration of the performance, the artist collaborated with a local instrumentalist in a musical dialogue that articulates ideas beyond language.

Produced by Chi-Wen Productions, A Dream of Wholeness in Parts (2021) is Sin’s most ambitious work to date. Shot with a local production team on location in Taipei, the film has garnered international acclaim. A Dream of Wholeness in Parts received its premiere at the BFI London Film Festival in 2021 and is currently touring UK museums as part of the British Art Show 9.

Born in Toronto, Sin discovered an opportunity for experimentation in London’s drag circuit, which gradually began to converge with their artistic practice. Produced under the name Victoria Sin, the artist has described their early works as an attempt to ‘embody and explode this image of white femininity’, with glamorous costumes, balloon-like silicone breasts, and elaborately painted faces, inspired by both drag culture and Chinese opera.

In 2020, Sin started to experiment with masculine identities in their practice and in turn adopted their Cantonese birth name, which is gender neutral. Marking a significant shift in their work, Sin began to take on a whole new cast of characters, some reappearing in multiple films in the artist’s ever-expanding universe. Storytelling, the process by which language produces identities, is at the heart of Sin’s practice, which seeks to imagine alternative realities.

Sin Wai Kin has featured in various major exhibitions, biennales and festivals including British Art Show 9 (various venues, UK, 2021-2022); BFI London Film Festival (London, UK, 2021); Age of You (Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto, CA, 2020); Kiss My Genders (Hayward Gallery, London, UK, 2019); and Meetings on Art (58th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy, 2019). Their work is included in the collections of the British Museum (UK), The Ingram Collection of Modern British Art (UK), and the Sunpride Foundation (Hong Kong).