Artist Biography
Bienyl Huelgas (b. 1998) is an emerging trans photographer based in Cavite, Philippines, whose work centers on analog photography as a medium for storytelling and preservation. Her journey with photography began on a birthday trip to the mountains of Sagada in Northern Luzon, accompanied by a secondhand digicam. Since then, she has transitioned to film photography, experimenting with a range of point-and-shoots, rangefinders, SLRs, and TLRs to capture a wide array of subjects through her lens.
Immersed in Manila’s queer nightlife, she uses film to capture intimate, electric glimpses of the city’s vibrant rave scene, juxtaposed with idyllic moments from rural Cavite. She also wields her lens as a way to navigate her own identity as a trans person by chronicling trans experiences through portraiture and fine art photography.
Her work has been exhibited both locally and internationally, and published in Tiga Mata, a Southeast Asian photography zine, as well as in notable contemporary fine art photography publications such as F-Stop Magazine, Lenscratch, and The Photo Review.
Currently, she is exploring alternative processes such as cyanotype printing and hand-sewing, gilding, and inscribing photographs as a way to physically intervene with the image, pushing the boundaries of the photographic form and deepening her relationship with the materiality of the medium.
