Toronto-born, UK-based Sin Wai Kin brings fantasy to life through storytelling in moving image, performance, writing, and print.

Their practice introduces worlds and characters that come into existence through the artist's thematic bodies of research ranging from science-fiction and non-dualistic philosophies to Peking opera and theoretical physics. In the embodied repetition and process of worldmaking, putting on/taking off, performing/being, in/out of dialogue, Sin exposes the layers of constructed narrative that converge into the environments that re/iterate who we are, who we can become, and the stories we can tell.

Parts of Sin’s multiverse will be presented during the festival across three sites, including the Canadian-premiere of ESSENCE, an advertising campaign. Wai King, one of the artist’s characters, takes the lead as the brand ambassador for a male cologne with a slogan promising "Your true self awaits". Through advertising's telling of reality, Sin's ESSENCE reveals: “There isn’t an underlying objective reality that we uncover. What is ‘real’ is what we agree that it is.”

Presented by CONTACT Photography Festival and Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival, both celebrating their 30th anniversaries in 2026. Supported by Sankofa Square and Pattison Outdoor Advertising.

Curated by Kelly Lui

單Sin 慧Wai 乾Kin is a multimedia artist, filmmaker, writer, and performer based in London. Their work realises alternate worlds that reflect on language, reality, time, identity, and duality. Sin was shortlisted for the Turner Prize 2022, the 2024 Jarman award, and the K21 Global Art Award 2025. They were the recipient of the 24th Baloise Art Prize at Art Basel 2023. Their solo exhibitions were held at Blindspot Gallery (Hong Kong, 2025), Canal Projects (New York, 2025), Kunsthall Trondheim (Trondheim, 2025), Accelerator (Stockholm, 2024), Mudam Luxembourg (Luxembourg, 2024), Buffalo AKG Art Museum (New York, 2024), Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (Berkeley, 2023), and Fondazione Memmo (Rome, 2023).

Kelly Lui is an arts worker with an interest in prioritizing care practices and interrogating sustainability within creative careers. She is the Shorts Programmer at the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival and is a firm lover of noodles. Outside of film, she is a founding member of TACLA, a collective dedicated to nurturing and activating a living archive, and one of four momos behind the zine publication, A MomoRoom. Kelly completed a Masters of Environmental Studies from York University with a focus on critical food pedagogy, spaces of intimacy and labour, and community arts.