The Fortress is an exploration of the archetypal ‘Man’, offering it up for scrutiny as the historically enlightened subject of reason, and the supposed neutral eye, from which historic canons of knowledge have been disingenuously formed. It proceeds to undermine and dismantle these notions and presents such a construct as the historic justification for colonialism and continued extractivist practices and exploitation - of people, resources, countries. As is familiar within Sin Wai Kin’s wider practice, the artist embodies this character in both dress and performance, but here we see them rehearse and construct the character as part of the work. A nod to the social construction of the archetype as a universal figure. As the film moves from rehearsals to the stage, the audience rejects the subject’s superiority, surety and arrogance by throwing fruit and booing. We see man’s misguided self-belief in their own benevolence challenged and their sense of entitlement, so enabled historically, begin to falter. A voice-over, perhaps their internal conscience, offers a damning analysis of their violent status. Much like meeting a ghost of the self, he realises the full extent of his delusion. The fallacy of universal experience, dictated by ‘man’, is revealed. The film takes inspiration from Sufi thought, and particularly the 13th Century poet, Rumi, who extols the virtues of a singular humanity, saying, in Mathnawi, book 1 that ‘multiplicity came about, like the shadows created by crenellation on a fortress wall. Demolish your fortress and that crenellation’. The Fortress, whose title makes direct reference to this verse, acknowledges the Sufi impulse of removing the veil between human experience and the divine with a poetic and discursive self-reflection. Themes of identity and power are explored and the work critiques Western-centric ideas of knowledge production and ultimately refutes the homogeneity of human experience by exposing the fragmented and inequitable life in all its plurality and difference.