Kawai Shen
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kawaishen.bsky.social
Kawai Shen
@kawaishen.bsky.social
310 followers 130 following 1.1K posts
Read me and weep

she/her; if I like you, you can call me sir

http://www.kawaishen.com
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kawaishen.bsky.social
I miss getting lost with you.
GPS screen mounted to the windshield of a car. The entire field is a blank green, no indication of the road the car is traversing. Long shot of a figure walking up a stony mountain. Trees, bushes and stones fade away into the mist.
November 17, 2025 at 3:51 AM
kawaishen.bsky.social
#wip
screenshot: “Maybe,” I said, unconvinced. My problem was not that I was unable to differentiate between ordinary human frailty and abuse. My problem was the fact that my only reliable means of defense against a bad man, was another bad man.
November 14, 2025 at 5:33 AM
kawaishen.bsky.social
A rich collection on god, race, sex, the south...
Cover of Trouble the Water by Derrick Austin featuring 10-79 by Diedrick Brackens, hand woven blue, orange and green fabric with red splotches made of nylon, chenille and hand dyed cotton. Tidewater Psalm "... in heaven it is always Autumn" - John Donne, Christmas Sermon, 1624 By sunset, the crickets' trilling begins in the airless damp, rich with salt and the sulfurous fumes the Gulf flags off. Bristling cattails brush my hands. The light-crested water rises and falls like a chest flecked with blonde hairs. I feel estranged from You. A shoal of minnows breaks, silvering my ankles, like a mirror; my heart swims in gladness at the changeable world. Tell me in heaven it's warm enough to wade into this fine transparence, never want for air, only light and water, and be as the river flowing into the sea which gives up its name.
November 13, 2025 at 11:45 PM
kawaishen.bsky.social
Finally picked up Deciem's Avestan (conceived by the late founder of The Ordinary, Brandon Truaxe). So many have compared this to the CdGs (it's woody, earthy, spicy, starchy so fair) - to me it's also like a pre-Othertopia Aesop. Excellent projection and quality for the price. #fragrancesky #sotd
Bottle of Avestan, a cream-coloured matte bottle with industrial metallic top, set on a wooden shelf with flowers. Publicity shot of Brandon Truaxe (RIP ;_;) in a room with exposed brick, seated at a desk with The Ordinary bottle droppers.
November 10, 2025 at 6:16 PM
kawaishen.bsky.social
Braved the snow to see Zine Dump ❄️❄️❄️❄️
Hand holding zine haul.
November 9, 2025 at 6:34 PM
kawaishen.bsky.social
Iran is one of the world's most water stressed nations. Shortages have driven protests for years; now there are talks of evacuating cities, relocating the capital.

Below, photos of Zayandeh Rood, the "life-giver" river of Esfahan.

No words for this level of loss.
Allahverdi Khan Bridge at night, the lights from its 33 arches reflected in the waters of the Zayande Rood, one of the most iconic and beautiful sites in Esfahan that has stood since the 17th century. Allahverdi Khan Bridge, the riverbed entirely dry and cracking.
November 9, 2025 at 4:38 PM
kawaishen.bsky.social
After so many years, @kushkomikss.bsky.social is still one of my fave anthology series for comics. This one is their mindfulness issue 🕉
Cover of kuš! #51, illustration of the Buddha seated on a lotus flower, surrounded by a swirling mandala of rainbow colours. Beside this, a kuš postcard of their latest issue, a nude figure crowned with laurels, playing a violin on a rock in the sea.
November 8, 2025 at 11:28 PM
kawaishen.bsky.social
Nimbys can't keep us down lol 🍕🍕🍕
Greasy takeout bag from Badiali and a bag of chips flavoured Badiali vodka sauce pizza.
November 3, 2025 at 2:42 AM
kawaishen.bsky.social
Was sorry to miss TIFA's Small Press Fair yesterday but managed to catch today's Indie Lit Market ✨️ Many thanks to @meetthepresses.bsky.social for organizing 🙏 I suspect this Jordan Tannahill + Derek McCormack could make for a great double bill...
Hand holding a copy of Jordan Tannahill's Prince Faggot.
November 2, 2025 at 10:12 PM
kawaishen.bsky.social
Spent some of last month in a remote cabin, watching stars and telling tall tales by the fire while coyotes around us laughed in the dark
Sunny day overlooking a large pond with lily pads and cat tails. Serene sunset over a lake. Fire at night taken with long exposure so the sparks form a series of bright lines moving upward.
November 2, 2025 at 4:10 PM
kawaishen.bsky.social
Finally picked up a copy of @emotrophywife.bsky.social's Herculine - didn't realize that this would be a suitable Halloween read that taps into religious fear and demonic figures 👿😱🔥
Cover of Herculine by Grace Byron - black and neon green illustration of the top half of a woman's head, hiding behind green flames. The peaks of two tiny devil horns float above her hair.
October 29, 2025 at 4:32 PM
kawaishen.bsky.social
Enjoyed the way Febos doesn't shy away from spirituality and looks to historical figures to guide her in the present though was struck by how individualistic her perspective remains throughout the memoir despite drawing so much from communities like the Beguines.
Cover of the Dry Season featuring an oil painting Sappho by Auguste Charles Mengin (1884) above which a layer of diagonal magenta and yellow ombre bands have been screened. Full length figure of Sappho, a bare-breasted woman standing on a rocky promontory against the sky and a dark sea. She leans her left arm at shoulder height on the rock and gazes down and to the right. Her dark eyes have shadows beneath them. Her dark wavy hair falls to her shoulders beneath the dark gauzy drapery which covers her head, the lower half of her body from waist to ankles, and her left upper arm. Her feet are bare. Her right arm hangs to her side, and in her right hand she holds a lyre.
October 29, 2025 at 4:22 PM
kawaishen.bsky.social
Jagdeep Raina's exhibit at Cooper Cole explores different facets of the lives of South Asian international students.
Industrial Dreams, mixed media (looks like pencil crayon and paint) scene, illustrative bird's eye view of industrial buildings on a snowy day, grey and white image interrupted by brief shots of orange, yellow and green. Sweaty Bodies, small embroidered fabric of a couple, their bodies intertwined. Below this, a yellow and black bird and the words: "their sweaty bodies melt like butter, they moan with grief, moan with pleasure".
October 20, 2025 at 9:34 PM
kawaishen.bsky.social
Geoffrey Mak double bill ✌️
Hand holding copies of Writing on Raving, edited by Zoë Beery, Geoffrey Mak & McKenzie Wark and Mean Boys by Geoffrey Mak
October 18, 2025 at 9:31 PM
kawaishen.bsky.social
Oil paintings by Michelle Nguyen at Bau Xi (Dufferin)
Oil painting: Bathing by Michelle Nguyen, a woman stands in a pond bent over and grasping her hair as it falls into the water. She is surrounded by lilypads and foliage, insects and frogs, rendered in an illustrative style with a dark, muted palette punctuated by brighter colours. Oil painting: Mayhem by Michelle Nguyen. Five horses of a pale jade colour and stylized manes and tails are tangled up with jade coloured human figures caught up in the herd, including a decapitated person with jade coloured blood spurting out like a fountain or a firework. Black background. Oil painting: Luxury Birdbath, a frilly three tier pastel cake with fondant flowers covered in ants and surrounded by colourful birds and water pouring down like a fountain, contrasting with butchered slabs of meat on a black background.
October 17, 2025 at 10:12 PM
kawaishen.bsky.social
From Kathryn Macnaughton's Undercurrents exhibit at Bau Xi (Dufferin)
Close up of painting showing layers of acrylic paint in tomato red, pale teal, pale mauve and warm yellow, applied at different concentrations from a thin wash to thick plastic, bleeding into each other creating different textures. Three abstract acrylic paintings in a row with bold colour palettes.
October 17, 2025 at 9:50 PM
kawaishen.bsky.social
I feel it's appropriate to follow this up with BUTT Magazine, which never fails to deliver.
Hand holding copy of BUTT issue 37, ft a photo of a fuzzy man standing in front of hydrangeas My trilogy was really the product of the first Drump administration. I started writing the first novel on the day of Drump's first inauguration. My visceral reaction to that was, "I'm gonna write porn." And I ended up writing the most outrageous stuff I could come up with.
October 16, 2025 at 4:40 AM
kawaishen.bsky.social
I love how in BL manga, members of the freaking yakuza always look like pretty boy pop stars lol. It's like reverse nunsploitation.
Cover of Wagimoko Wagase's Afterglow. A pretty young man embraces a pretty, tatted up young yakuza man with John Lennon sunglasses and dyed blond hair. Cover of Yakuza No Oshinogi: two pretty boys in suits, the shirt slipping off the yakuza with dyed blond hair, revealing his tattoos. Cover of Don't Mess With the Yakuza!: Two pretty boys embracing. The yakuza is topless, showing off chrysanthemum tattoos, the other showing off a little ass cleavage.
October 16, 2025 at 1:53 AM
kawaishen.bsky.social
Went to YYZ Artists Outlet to see Annie Wong's to hear all the sounds in the world and caught Juan Ortiz-Apuy's Coming to Grips
Annie Wong installation with sheets red joss paper connected to as to appear like one slightly twisting massive sheet spanning most of the room. The paper features one hundred tiny cut-outs, still partly attached to the paper and folded upward. The walls of the room are painted a similar red. Close up of joss paper cut-outs, in the shape of heads with a woman's face printed on each head. Juan Ortiz-Apuy: an installation sculptures of what appears vaguely to be palm-sized animal vertebrae mounted on metal sticks in a 3 x 3 formation. Between the sticks, two stylized planters with live plants each with its own matching green watering globe. Various objects on display of white ceramics, wood and black glass (?) that appear like household objects for use with familiar shapes, handles, and such, but are not actually usable.
October 14, 2025 at 10:06 PM
kawaishen.bsky.social
The Cold Data exhibit at Gallery 44 tasks the viewer with acknowledging the material realities and costs of data storage and computing with a model data centre, collage pieces and short film
Cold Data by Soft Turns (Wojciech Olejnik and Sarah Jane Gorlitz): a model data centre with tiny lights, fans. Remarkably realistic.
October 12, 2025 at 4:26 PM
kawaishen.bsky.social
You're free to express yourself as an artist sure, but if you're coming to read in Toronto, maybe consider how a poem like this will land with an audience in a city full of refugees from colonial violence and the children of those refugees
Hannah Black: I’ve noticed, especially in poetry, but elsewhere as well, an existential question coming up around how to go on with everyday life while genocide is happening. “A genocide is happening and I’m eating breakfast”—that kind of thing. In some moods, it strikes me as fundamentally trivial or even kind of narcissistic. But then in other moments, I think, well, it might be an important question. Do you have any thoughts on that? Mohammed El-Kurd: It’s good to talk to your friends about these things, but I think these are conversations you keep to the group chat. I don’t think this is for the stage or for the page. I think our role is to shift the lens from how we feel about what’s happening to what’s happening.
October 5, 2025 at 7:00 PM
kawaishen.bsky.social
Recently finished reading this collection of interviews and saw that Miss Major is fundraising for hospital fees: fundly.com/missmajor
Cover of Miss Major Speaks by Toshio Meronek and Miss Major, photograph of a young Miss Major in a shimmery cold shoulder dress under a disco ball.
October 2, 2025 at 9:30 PM
kawaishen.bsky.social
I really wish that I'd been assigned to read this, Hartman's Scenes of Subjection, and other such books in my undergrad.
Cover of Christina Sharpe's Monstrous Intimacies: Making Post-Slavery Subjects ft a black and white photo, "Missing Link, Liberty" by Carrie Mae Weems. A figure in a tux with white gloves, tipping a top hat towards something outside the frame. Completely obscuring their face and head is the mask of an elephant. Excerpted text from Christina Sharpe's Monstrous Intimacies: "The legal captivity of Africans and their descendants was central to the codification of rights and freedoms for those legally constituted as white and their legally white descendants. That is, freedoms for those people constituted as white were and are produced through an other’s body legally and otherwise being made to wear unfreedom and to serve as a placeholder for access to the freedoms that are denied the black subject."
October 1, 2025 at 9:41 PM
kawaishen.bsky.social
If anyone has read this Varoufakis book and the Cédric Durand book on the same topic, is it worth reading both?...
Cover of Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism by Yanis Varoufakis. Bold white and purple sans-serif text with a black background.
September 27, 2025 at 8:33 PM
kawaishen.bsky.social
I know it's not officially spooky season yet but I'm starting off my #autumnreads this year with some horror 💀🕸
Copies of Koga Shinichi's Mansect and Julia Gfrörer's World Within the World comics on a table surrounded by dried flowers
September 25, 2025 at 2:06 AM