Sin Wai Kin

The Fortress (2024)
Sin Wai Kin
Selected for AFI'25 by Forma and Southwark Park Galleries

Commissioned by Forma and Lahore Biennale Foundation, Sin Wai Kin’s The Fortress deconstructs the archetype of “Man,” the so-called rational subject of Western Enlightenment, whose self-appointed authority has shaped canons of knowledge and justified imperialism. Through a dreamlike narrative, Sin dismantles the illusion of his inherent and singular supremacy, exposing the unstable foundations on which his dominance rests and the catastrophic consequences of this constructed paradigm.

Set across two historically significant sites in Lahore, The Fortress follows Wai King, embodied by Sin Wai Kin, as he rehearses for the role of Man at Alfalah Theatre. His performance falters and he begins to fall apart, forcing a reckoning with the fallacy of his universality. At Lahore Fort, he confronts his ghostly double - an echo of past selves and fractured histories. Between these spaces, the boundaries between self and world dissolve, exposing the fragility of his constructed paradigm.

The Fortress takes its title from thirteenth century Sufi poet Rūmī’s Mathnawī, which calls for the walls of a fortress to be demolished to dispel a sense of othering. Exposing existence as fragmented and plural, the film unravels identity and power, critiquing Western-centric knowledge systems and challenging the notion of a fixed reality. In doing so, The Fortress rejects the hegemonic narratives of human experience, revealing its inherent inequities and multiplicities. If reality is constructed, it is also open to dismantling, reimagining, and remaking.

The Fortress will premier in the UK at Southwark Park Galleries on the occasion of Artists' Film International 2025: Dream States, in July 2025.