Huny (she/her or they/them) is many things: a DJ, a photographer, a curator of community, and a tender but fierce advocate for Black queer life. For over a decade, she’s called Pittsburgh home, a place she arrived at by way of New York, family ties, and an intuition for possibility. In that time, Huny has become one of the most vital creative forces in the city’s LGBTQ+ nightlife and arts scenes, using photography, music, and event curation to center joy, safety, and reflection.
Creating Reflection
At the core of Huny’s work is a desire to see herself and her community reflected accurately, tenderly, and unapologetically. “What gets me excited about creating art?” she asks. “I really like primarily shining a spotlight on Black womanhood as well as the queer community.” As a Black queer woman herself, the drive is personal and political.
“I love to see my community reflected properly,” she says. “I like the idea of framing specifically Black women, Black queer women, on the walls of museums and art galleries.” For Huny, representation is more than just inclusion, it’s a rightful claim to space in cultural institutions that have long ignored or excluded people like her.
Her photography is not only expressive, but intentional. “I like to create art with people I already know,” she explains. “I consider them to be my co-conspirators… my muses. We talk about how they want to be presented, about maybe how they’ve never seen themselves reflected in the arts.” The process is intimate, collaborative, and rooted in care, especially for those who have never felt seen through a lens before. “There’s a lot of people that say they don’t even like getting their picture taken,” she adds. “So I consider it a collaborative process… that relationship with the people I put in my art… that’s how I embody that.”
Queer by Nature
To Huny, queerness isn’t something she adds into her art, it’s already baked into every layer. “I wouldn’t know any other way, really,” she says. “It’s my lifestyle and my life.” Her photography, her DJ sets, her events, every part of her creative world is built from and for the queer community she calls family.
“Almost all of my friends are also queer people,” she explains. “It’s truly not only my community, but my family. So it just stands to reason that I, somebody who likes to create art that reflects the experience I have in the world as a Black queer woman, would make work that’s a reflection of that life.”
What makes her art feel so rich is the deep sense of knowing that underlies it. Huny isn’t just documenting a scene, she’s co-creating with the people who inspire her most. “There’s a lot of photography that centers around heterosexuality, heteronormativity,” she says. “I like concentrating on sapphic love. The love that women have between each other, being platonic or romantic.” For Huny, it’s all about seeing and being seen, not through an outsider’s gaze but through the intimacy of chosen family.
Returning the Love
Gratitude runs through everything Huny does. “The queer community has given me so much,” she says. “All of my muses, in the arts as well as in nightlife, are queer people who have helped me, shown me the way, and inspired me. So what I do now is literally like paying it forward.”
That pay-it-forward spirit lives most visibly in Most Beautifullest, Huny’s event collective focused on creating queer-centered nightlife that’s rooted in joy and safety. But safety, as Huny sees it, is so much more than physical. “There’s security, sure,” she says. “But it’s also: no transphobia, no homophobia, no racism, no body shaming, nothing without consent, no leering, no staring.” The goal is to make spaces where people can show up fully, “surrounded by love and acceptance.”
She draws a connection between the spaces she’s helping to build now and the ones our queer elders once relied on in secret. “There was a time, not that long ago, when people had to go to these spaces to be themselves,” she says. “When they lived their everyday lives, when they went to their nine-to-five, when they were walking down the street, it was far more unsafe than it even is for us now, especially for our trans siblings.”
Her mission is simple, powerful, and deeply rooted in love: “I hope everybody feels like they can be their true selves.”
Why Pittsburgh?
Huny’s journey to Pittsburgh wasn’t necessarily planned, but it’s one that’s deeply tied to family, opportunity, and a new chapter. “I’ve been in Pittsburgh for 11 years, which is crazy,” she says. Originally from New York City, Huny moved here after her mom, who’s originally from Pittsburgh, returned to the city. “New York was getting very expensive,” she admits. “I just wanted a different experience for myself, and my mom convinced me to come to Pittsburgh.”
The city’s potential became clear to her through both personal ties and professional opportunity. She was drawn to Pittsburgh’s “Advancing Black Arts” grants, which were vital for her transition into event production. “It felt like a good opportunity,” she says. “Even in a smaller city, New York is so huge and overwhelming when trying to break into new fields. I had thrown parties in New York, but nothing like event production.”
While Huny didn’t fall in love with Pittsburgh immediately, she found something special within the city’s community. “I found a really amazing community here, specifically of Black queer people,” she shares. “I felt there was a lack of Black queer events here, but that inspired me to create Most Beautifullest.” Through the events she created, Huny met “some of the most talented, amazing, beautiful people” she’s ever met. The community, while small, helped ground her decision to stay, but not forever. “My days are numbered in Pittsburgh,” she says, “I am planning to move this year. But I always come back. My mom is here, my friends are here. Pittsburgh will always be a part of me.”
Nightlife as Ancestry
As much as Huny is a creator, she’s also a product of the vibrant queer nightlife scene she helped shape. “I always say that as queer people, the dance floor is our ancestral home,” she says, emphasizing the importance of the space. Nightlife is more than just a setting for music and dance, it’s a space where queer joy is amplified, where bodies move with freedom, and where community is built.
Her role as an event producer and DJ allows her to capture this raw energy, turning it into both an art form and a vital community connector. “Everything that I do is actually about people,” she reflects. “The umbrella over everything I’m interested in is community and people in general.” Through her events, Huny has met “the best people” who’ve inspired both her photography and the way she sees the world. “I step up to them and say, ‘I’d really like to photograph you,’” she explains, allowing her love for nightlife to intersect with her visual art.
It’s this synergy between art and community that makes her work feel so alive. “I love party people. I’m a party girl,” Huny says with a laugh. “To really be introduced to the community in that way, it’s so inspiring. To see how people use their bodies on the dance floor is very inspiring to me as a visual artist.”
Pride as Resistance
For Huny, pride isn’t just a celebration, it’s an act of resistance. In a world where marginalized communities are under constant attack, pride is about more than parades and rainbow flags. “Pride is literally existing at this point,” she says. “Existing and not letting anybody tell you who you are, what your pronouns can be, what your gender is. Pride is literally being exactly who you’re supposed to be in this world.”
In this moment, Huny’s voice cracks slightly with emotion as she acknowledges the real and present danger facing the queer community, especially Black trans people. “I’m really scared for my community, specifically Black trans people right now,” she shares. “Pride is also protecting each other. We are a community. There’s a lot of differences we have, a lot of intersections that we embody as people.”
For Huny, pride is about solidarity across differences. “I’m a Black queer woman. Some of my friends are white queer people, white trans people, Black trans men have a different experience than I do,” she explains. “But at the end of the day, we’re supposed to protect each other. There’s not as many of us as there are of them, and pride means we have to have each other’s backs, especially right now.”
Her words speak to a deeper, more urgent need for community. “The parties are fun. The parade is great. The rainbow fashions, love that,” she says, with a grin. “But at the end of the day, we really need to be united right now. That’s truly what pride means to me.”
For Huny, pride isn’t a one-month event, it’s a year-round fight for visibility, love, and protection. “I call pride my favorite holiday,” she says. “I love June, the fact that you even see queer people in the city that you don’t see any other time of the year. It’s kind of like our coming out, year after year.”
Despite the uncertainty of our political climate, Huny remains hopeful. “I know it’s a scary time, but I’m really looking forward to it.”
Through her work as a photographer, DJ, event producer, and activist, Huny is creating more than just art, she’s shaping the world she wants to see. Whether it’s through the lens of her camera or the beats she drops in the club, she’s centering the beauty, the struggles, and the power of the queer, Black, and trans communities.
Her work is an offering, a love letter to a community that’s constantly fighting for its right to exist, to be visible, and to thrive. It’s not just about making art it’s about making space, making history, and making sure that the stories of Black queer women are framed and celebrated where they belong: in galleries, on the dance floor, and everywhere in between.
