CHELSEA BRIMSTIN

Chelsea Brimstin is an interdisciplinary photographer, writer, and digital media producer working in Toronto, Ontario. Chelsea holds a BA in Creative Writing with a Minor in Mathematics from the Western University (2017). Being immersed in the queer community, their practice explores boundaries, highlighting the spaces where contrasting forces meet. Whether extending that exploration to capturing the perfect moment at a concert or to creatively calculated portraiture, they aim to utilize both film and digital stills to encapsulate a memory in truly innovative ways.

Chelsea has held two exhibitions, the first showcasing their concert photography at Antikka Cafe. The second exhibition, UNBOUND, was an exploration of safe queer spaces, highlighting what it looks and feels like to enter them, participate in them, and leave them. Hosted at The Freedom Factory, the collection grew from the interesting point of tension between looking at and experiencing these spaces through photographs, while still being forced to act within the rigid confines of an exhibition. Now, UNBOUND aims to use the tension between light and shadows to highlight the necessity of safe queer spaces. These moments of tense uncertainty make these spaces even more important - even more powerful.

Chelsea has worked as a photographer for a variety of music blogs including Indie88, A.Side, The Culture Trip, Canadian Beats, and more. They have taken concert photos for artists like Florence + The Machine, Maggie Rogers, The 1975, MARINA, and Vampire Weekend. With a variety of work in the queer community and fashion industry, Chelsea has also captured photographs of drag queens like Brooke Lynn Hytes, Vanessa (Vanjie) Matteo, and A'Keria Davenport, in addition to fashion shows by Yung Alexander, Robert Atelier, and Sage Paul.