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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


Alvaro Barrington, Garvey: Sex Love Nurturing Famalay

Art Review

October 2019

Kevin Brazil

Art Review

October 2019

The unofficial anthem of this year’s London Carnival was ‘Famalay’, a bouyon-influenced soca song that won the Road March in Trinidad & Tobago’s Carnival...

Essay

October 2018

The Uses of Queer Art

Kevin Brazil

Essay

October 2018

In June 2018 a crowd assembled in Tate Britain to ask: ‘What does a queer museum look like?’ Surrounded...

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

July 2018

Kevin Brazil

Contributor

July 2018

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

Nora Ikstena's ‘Soviet Milk’

Book Review

August 2018

Kevin Brazil

Book Review

August 2018

Soviet Milk by Nora Ikstena opens with two women who cannot remember. ‘I don’t remember 15 October 1969,’ says the first. ‘I don’t remember...

READ NEXT

feature

Issue No. 10

Vern Blosum, Phantom

William E. Jones

feature

Issue No. 10

Chatsworth, established in 1888 in the northwest corner of the San Fernando Valley, took its name from the family...

Interview

March 2015

Interview with Jonathan Meades

Jamie Sutcliffe

Interview

March 2015

The television broadcasts of Jonathan Meades are marked by a surreal humour, a polymathic breadth of knowledge, and a...

poetry

June 2012

At Night the Wife Makes Her Point: Two Poems

Gioconda Belli

TR. Charles Castaldi

poetry

June 2012

AT NIGHT, THE WIFE MAKES HER POINT   No. I don’t have Cindy Crawford’s legs. I haven’t spent my...

 

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