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Kevin Brazil
Kevin Brazil is a writer and critic who lives in London. His writing has appeared in Granta, The White Review, the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, Art Review, art-agenda, Studio International, and elsewhere. He is writing a book about queer happiness.

Articles Available Online


Interview with Sianne Ngai

Interview

October 2020

Kevin Brazil

Interview

October 2020

Over the past fifteen years, Sianne Ngai has created a taxonomy of the aesthetic features of contemporary capitalism: the emotions it provokes, the judgements...

Essay

Issue No. 28

Fear of a Gay Planet

Kevin Brazil

Essay

Issue No. 28

In Robert Ferro’s 1988 novel Second Son, Mark Valerian suffers from an unnamed illness afflicting gay men, spread by...

During a performance of A View From Elsewhere (2019), Toronto-born artist Sin Wai Kin wore a floor length gown with matching evening gloves As the fantasy in three acts unfolded, one side of their mouth transformed into a smirk The performance was characterised by an unapologetic exhaustion as Sin Wai Kin lip-synced over a provocative track about the demands of the audiences’ gaze: ‘She’s here… So, go on, look at her’   Sin Wai Kin, formerly known as Victoria Sin, identifies as non-binary Their performances ply apart femininity in order to expose gender as an elaborate social construct – a comedic opera of many composite parts, reliant on myth, performance and spectatorship    In their latest work, a film titled A Dream of Wholeness in Parts (2021), influenced by Cantonese opera, Sin Wai Kin toys with – and queers – tradition They appear as several characters at once, presenting interpretations of Cantonese operatic archetypes One such character is The Universe, a reinterpretation of the Zing (warrior) role, appearing in a diamanté belt with the letters ‘R’, ‘E’, ‘A’, ‘L’ brandished across the waist – a nod to the ways in which Sin Wai Kin’s practice both mocks and heralds language as a technology for truth production Actuality is regarded as just another lacklustre accessory    In the past year, Sin Wai Kin’s performances have taken the form of virtual commissions, such as Total Fabrication (2020), a short film published on the Guggenheim’s Works and Process YouTube channel In this three-minute clip, Sin Wai Kin dons a rainbow-shaped moustache, their face bearing a striking resemblance to iconic filmmaker John Waters They then lip-sync to a track that troubles the distinction between news and performance, fact and invention    When I meet Sin Wai Kin over Zoom, they sit in front of a floor-to-ceiling mirror at home in London The reflection revealed a reproduction of the Mona Lisa in a small gold frame, on a wall behind the screen A print of Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus was affixed nearby As Sin Wai Kin spoke of their interests in performance, fiction and disguise, I began to

Contributor

March 2018

Kevin Brazil

Contributor

March 2018

Kevin Brazil is a writer and critic who lives in London. His writing has appeared in Granta, The White Review, the London...

Interview with Terre Thaemlitz

Interview

March 2018

Kevin Brazil

Interview

March 2018

In the first room of Terre Thaemlitz’s 2017 exhibition ‘INTERSTICES’, at Auto Italia in London, columns of white text ran across one wall. Thaemlitz...

READ NEXT

poetry

March 2013

The Humming Lady

James Byrne

poetry

March 2013

The humming lady arrives in a smiling orange smock and orders from the waiter a plate of overripe oranges,...

feature

January 2016

Suite

Pierre Senges

TR. Jacob Siefring

feature

January 2016

‘Suite’ was born of an invitation Pierre Senges received to contribute to an anthology on the future of the novel (Devenirs...

fiction

November 2016

Somnoproxy

Stuart Evers

fiction

November 2016

The day’s third hotel suite faced westwards across the harbour, its picture window looking down over the boats and...

 

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