Skill Futures: Dreaming the End by Sin Wai Kin
Dreaming the End (2023) is a contemplative exploration of fluid narratives and the evolution of human experiences. With a discerning eye, Sin situates viewers in a liminal space where time, references, and locales intermingle, bringing forth both the familiar and the uncanny in an interlocking tapestry of dreamlike narratives and enigmatic characters. This ambitious project borrows and reshapes elements from various cinematic genres, including thriller, noir and fantasy, effectively distorting the conventional frameworks of narrative cinema. The film scrutinises notions of authenticity and performance, raising pivotal questions about their intersections and boundaries within a narrative framework. Dreaming the End invites viewers to engage with a non-binary consciousness, urging a departure from rigid patterns, thereby fostering a rich and evolving discourse on the mutable nature of reality and fiction.
The screening will be followed by a conversation with SAM curator Teng Yen Hui. This session is held in conjunction with the series Skill Futures.
About the Artist
Sin Wai Kin (b. 1991, Toronto, CA) brings fantasy to life through storytelling in moving image, performance, writing, and print. Drawing on experiences of binary categories, their work realises alternate worlds to describe lived experiences of desire, identification and consciousness. The artist was nominated for the 2024 Jarman award for their film works Dreaming the End (2023) and The Breaking Story (2022). They were the recipient of the 24th Baloise Art Prize at Art Basel 2023 for their film series Portraits (2023). Their film, A Dream of Wholeness in Parts (2021) was nominated for the 2022 Turner Prize, and included in the touring exhibition the British Art Show 9, as well as being screened at the British Film Institute’s 65th London Film Festival. Recent solo exhibitions include The End Time! at Canal Projects, New York (2025); The Time of Our Lives at Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong (2025); Man’s World at Kunsthall Trondheim, Tronheim (2024); The Time of Our Lives at Accelerator, Stockholm (2024); MUDAM, Luxembourg (2024); Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York (2024); Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley (2023); Dreaming the End at Fondazione Memmo, Rome (2023); A Dream of Wholeness in Parts at Soft Opening, London (2022); It’s Always You at Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong (2021).
Group exhibitions include The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: Picasso for Asia—A Conversation at M+ Museum, Hong Kong (2025); Lahore Biennale 03, Lahore (2024); Greater Toronto Art (GTA24) at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto; CUTE at Somerset House, London (2024); After Laughter Comes Tears at Mudam, Luxembourg (2023); Turner Prize 2022, Tate Liverpool, (2022); MYTH MAKERS — SPECTROSYNTHESIS III, Taikwun, Hong Kong (2022); Drawing Attention at The British Museum, London (2022). Sin’s work is held in the collections of Vancouver Art Gallery; Tate Collection, UK; The British Museum Prints & Drawings; White Rabbit Gallery, Sydney; Ferens Art Gallery, Hull; The Ingram Collection of Modern British Art, UK; Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo; Sunpride Foundation, Hong Kong and M+ Museum, Hong Kong.
About Skill Futures
In a time when the physical and digital are blurred, what skills do we need to understand and critically shape our hybrid realities? Artists are now being asked to invest in digital skills more than ever: to "upskill" and pursue "personal development," to prepare to emerge on the other side of COVID equipped for a future whose material and digital realities will be even more intertwined. But what does it mean to become "smarter"? To what ends are new technical skills being pursued? Skill Futures is a digital commissioning platform of the Singapore Art Museum, which features performances, workshops, and experimental lectures. It elaborates on the new forms of "intelligence" that emerges from different ways of reading the screen as a speculative medium of the future. These programmes may take the form of talks, discussions, workshops, or performative commissions led by SAM curators.