"Nymph of Despair" by Bienyl Huelgas
Nymph of Despair
Cyanonymphs Series
Bienyl Huelgas
Media: Cyanotype print on Kodak Gold 200 film box
Framed Size: 11.5" x 20.5"
Price: $800
PROCESS
As a photographer who primarily works with film, I have accumulated a surplus of film boxes at home. Rather than discard them, I chose to repurpose these materials by cutting the boxes open and coating them with cyanotype solution to print unchosen images from past photo shoots. Using film boxes as a surface allows my work to stay intimately connected to the process of analog photography. These boxes once protected film rolls; now they carry the final images. I wanted to give these outtakes a new life by creating a space where overlooked moments could exist, transformed into cyanotype prints that tell stories of their own.
STATEMENT
Nymph of Despair is part of a series of cyanotype prints on various film boxes where trans Filipinas appear as Diwata, or nymphs in English. I frame them as sacred beings drawn from Filipino mythology and imagined through a trans lens. The blue of the cyanotype adds another layer to these photographs, coloring the nymphs with a sense of melancholia that reflects the harsh realities and isolation faced by trans women in the Philippines. The result is the Cyanoymphs Series, a collection of trans Filipina nymphs shown in various states of emotional stillness, offering a contemplative reflection on the trans identity, mythology, and the power of reimagining what has been cast aside.
BIO
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.
