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Sin Wai Kin in “Human Nature”
Descriptive audio version available here.
In the quiet solitude of their studio, artist Sin Wai Kin carefully applies makeup to their face amid a collection of colorful wigs, brushes, and jars, slowly shapeshifting into one of the many personas they inhabit in their work. This documentary short takes viewers behind the scenes as Sin creates performance, video, text, and installation works that open a fluid space between seemingly rigid binaries such as dreaming and waking, life and death, and performance and authenticity. Drawing on varied histories and styles of performance and storytelling, including Cantonese opera, K-pop, and sitcoms, their works reveal how the stories we tell ourselves shape our identities and our shared world. “Storytelling not only represents but creates realities,” says the artist. “Storytelling is a tool to construct other perspectives that you can immerse yourself in, and then be able to see the world.” Through their work, Sin disrupts narrative and genre conventions, offering possibilities for fluidity and unpredictability within the human experience.
Credits
Director: Ian Forster. Executive Producer: Tina Kukielski. Series Producer: Nick Ravich.
Producer: Andrea Yu-Chieh Chung. Editor: Sebastián Díaz. Director of Photography: Andrew Kemp. Associate Curator: Jurrell Lewis. Design & Animation: Momentist, Inc. Composer: Andrew Orkin.
Additional Cinematography: Michelle Hanks, Christoph Lerch, Brandon Moran, Fredrik Streiffert, Jane Macedo Yang. Assistant Camera: Giselle Turner. Archival Producer: Leah Ford. Location Sound: Joe Harris & Teresa-Esmeralda Sanchez.
Additional Art21 Staff: Makda Amdetsyon, Lauren Barnett, Hannah DeGarmo, Lolita Fierro, Grace LeCates, Emma Nordin, Jessica Svenson, Noor Tamari, Nora Wimmer. Interns: Candice Cirilo, Emma Kanne, Billie Lam, Asante Marie Owusu-Brafi, Aarya Silwal, Maria Syville, Emilia Copeland Titus.
Video Post-Production Service: Cut + Measure. Video Post-Production Producer: Alex Laviola.
Colorist: Chris Ramey. Online & Conform: David Gauff. Post-Production Coordinator: Mary Grace Duffy. Audio Post-Production Service: Post Romantic. Re-Recording Mixer & Sound Editor: Gisela Fullà-Silvestre. Assistant Sound Editor: Dan Weisselberg. Audio Description & Captions: Sasha Hecht & Andre Kelman. Quality Control: Adam Stout. Narration: Louise Eliasof. Additional Music: Trey Toy. Additional Video Editor: Regina Spurlock. Additional Animation: Christian Mroczka. Assistant Editors: Isabella Morelli Avilán, Stephanie Cen, Sarah Yi Fineman, Michelle Hanks.
Legal Counsel: Donaldson Callif Perez.
Artwork Courtesy: Sin Wai Kin & Blindspot Gallery.
© 2026 Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Additional Artworks By: Caravaggio, Frida Kahlo, Lu Zhi, Man Ray, Leonardo da Vinci.
Archival Material: Associated Press, The Collection of Hong Kong Heritage Museum, Drag Coven, Geisler-Fotopress GmbH / Alamy Stock Photo, The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource NY, VCG via Getty Images.
Special Thanks: The Art21 Board of Trustees, The Time of Our Lives Cast and Crew, Samantha Wolf.
Filming Locations Provided By: Accelerator at Stockholm University, Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Canal Projects, Mudam Luxembourg, Silverlens, Somerset House.
Series Created By: Susan Dowling & Susan Sollins.
Original Production Funding Provided By: The Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation, Lambent Foundation, Agnes Gund, Melony and Adam Lewis, National Endowment for the Arts, Teiger Foundation, Sarah Arison, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Dealer Tire, Arts, Equity, & Education Fund™, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, Elyse and Lawrence B. Benenson, Stephanie and Tim Ingrassia, Tim and Lauren Schrager Family Foundation.
This program is a production of Art21, Inc. which is solely responsible for its content.
© 2026 Art21, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Closed captionsAvailable in English, German, Romanian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Italian
Through the Art21 Translation Project, multilingual audiences from around the globe can contribute translations, making Art21 films more accessible worldwide.
Interested in showing this film in an exhibition or public screening? To license this video please visit Licensing & Reproduction.
Sin Wai Kin was born in 1991 in Toronto, Canada, and lives and works in London, United Kingdom. The artist received their BA from Camberwell College of Arts in 2014 and their MA from the Royal College of Art, London in 2017. Drawing on diverse performance styles, such as drag, boy bands, newscasting, and sitcoms, Sin plays with genre conventions, narrative structures, and character tropes to reveal the cultural constructions at the heart of everyday experience. In an ongoing series of interconnected works, the artist has developed a cast of archetypal characters, each reflecting distinct relationships to fundamental concepts such as truth, identity, and change. Sin develops fictional worlds that explore the stories we tell about ourselves and our society, presenting more fluid possibilities for both.
“Storytelling not only represents but creates realities. Storytelling is a tool to construct other perspectives that you can immerse yourself in, and then be able to see the world.”
Sin Wai Kin