Today we’d like to introduce you to Remy Styrk.
Remy, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I’m an award-winning filmmaker, musician, and humanist. I am a Black trans man born into foster care and adopted into a white family in New Jersey. I started teaching myself how to play guitar and drums when I was 5. When my adoptive mom passed away when I was 6, I really leaned deeper into my music and my art. I was born with apraxia and didn’t start talking until I was about 3, so I naturally had other ways of describing and communicating with the world around me – which I believe also fueled my art and influenced how I interact with and use my art. Being able to play and write music, along with creatively processing and reimaging the world around, really gave voice to the voicelessness of losing my mom so young. By about 7 or 8, I had taught myself piano, bass, other percussion, and was really forming my approach to songwriting and producing. This was also about the same time I had learned language around knowing that I was trans and began to transition. I went on hormone blockers really young – for other medical reasons that fortunately lined up with what I was feeling on the inside. I also loved to draw, paint, and scuplt, so the mediums I could communicate what was going on inside were almost endless.
I was bullied tremendously through elementary and middle school, 1, for being one of the only Black kids there, and 2, being one if not the only, trans kid there. I got death threats, I got pushed and shoved into lockers and down the stairs, I got yelled at, I had rumors spread about me, and it got to the point where the only “safe” place was the front office or principal’s office. It wasn’t truly safe there either. I also fell into heavy drug addiction at 13 and am now 8 years sober after a new overdose. So I continued to lean into my art and my expression. I started joining and forming bands, I built a recording studio in my room, I would go back to New York every summer to intern in a recording studio, and I would just pour myself into my craft. I was fortunate enough to play some huge stages very early – being able to play the Midland multiple times from elementary school to high school, play the Roxy multiple times, play the Kauffman, play the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, the Uptown Theatre, the Record Bar, all these places. In 2013, so I would’ve been 12/13, I got accepted into the Grammy Museum’s Grammy Music Revolution Project and was able to study and write with Fall Out Boy, Sevendust, Matchbox Twenty, and a few others. I got to play with Lifehouse and Gary Hoey at Big Dudes when I was like 10, which was unreal, thinking about it now.
I went to a small arts-focused school in Waldo called Kansas City Academy. In maybe my sophomore year, I got really interested in more social work, human services, and teaching, so I would sit in on other music classes and help other students write. After doing that for a bit, I wanted more, so I started to write songwriting workshops and teach them after school at different non-profits and community centers. I remember I got my first grant ever in high school to write and host a songwriting workshop through the lens of self-liberation and expression. I continued that work through graduation while still going to New York to work in the summers. After graduation, that’s when I got sober, I took the visual side of my art more seriously. I want to say that towards the end of elementary school, into early middle school, I got really into computers and built an operating system with a friend of mine. It was another way to express how my mind works and how I see things fitting together, interacting, playing, and improvising off each other. I think that’s when the possibility of visual things in my art started. That summer after graduating and working in New York (2017), I got to engineer some of the voices for Sesame Street, we got to work on Stephen Colbert, we worked on Wimbledon, we worked on Ghost Adventures, and a few other small film and video productions. That was all film scoring and sound design.
The plan was to move to New York 2020 after a really successful summer in 2019. Of course, that got derailed by the pandemic. At that point, I had some big names and projects under my belt and was feeling good about my career. And it was still early in the pandemic where we all thought it was just going to be a few months. I ended up taking a teaching job at Plaza Academy as the head of the music department. I did that for a year while still working on my own music and art. After a while, I missed scoring films and doing sound design, so I taught myself filmmaking at the end of 2020. I committed to making 1 short film a month for the entirety of 2021. That led to having those films shown internationally at all different types of film festivals, receiving multiple awards, meeting new people, and eventually moving to the East Coast in early 2022. I got work on video work for other artists and big companies.
Right after I moved, I started my own production company, focusing on the ideas behind brands and “why” of the work. It didn’t feel right, you know? It just felt like I was spinning my wheels and I believe that the pandemic had changed my view of the city that I didn’t realize. I was still making music and making personal films and that felt like it genuinely nourished me. About 5 months into living there, I got called out to Washington state to direct a documentary about Juneteenth. I knew nothing of the area, no history, no context and just went out there. There’s a long story there and I won’t get into it, but it ended up being the best option at that time, so I moved there.
We finished the documentary – it’s now shown in the school districts annually, companies screen it for their staff, organizations screen it at events, etc. Also, nationally, not just in Washington state. I made a part 2 of the documentary separately and that went on to be shown in film festivals and screened all over the state and nationally. Eventually, I took a job at a non-profit there. I oversaw all of the services and the data and impact, really rebuilding the way ethical documentation and partnerships between young people and people providing care. I wrote an accrediated photojournalism course for Black and Brown young people to use photography to examine how trauma gets passed down generation to generation. I won awards for that job and work. I served on many boards, from government subgroups to other local nonprofits. At this point, my art now encompasses the social side of public health and administration.
I left that job after 2 years at the end of 2024 and launched my own fiscally sponsored organization, raising suicide awareness for Black and Brown trans communities through art. That work came from the realization that suicide forced me to come face-to-face with the things I loved most about myself. We have as much to learn about death as we do life. So I wrote a book highlighting the difference between meeting someone’s soul versus meeting their physical body. My organization partners with non-profits, community centers, therapist offices, etc, to have my book at their locations for free so that other Black and Brown folks can have access to it. And now I’m in the process of expanding the work in partnership with some hospitals, universities, and health departments both in the Seattle area and nationally.
I still do freelance filmmaking and music scoring/production, but everything is on my terms now. I do feel a bit burnt out from working on so many commercial projects. You know, the final product is usually very different from what you started with.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The road was never easy. I mean, I could say the easy part was trusting my vision. The amount of “no’s” I’ve heard, the relationships and friendships I lost, the sacrifices and compromises I made, the anger, the tears, the frustration, the disappointments, all of it, I can’t even give you a number or a metaphor to describe the sheer amount. I worked really hard to get to where I am and keep myself growing, learning, and staying curious. I still have days when I want to give up or set everything down. I chose and carved this path because my art is what comes naturally to me – it’s what I’ve always done. If it were easy, then I’d be done creating. I’m a very optimistic person. When things get tough, I don’t complain; I don’t dwell on it much. My vision has already shown me how far I can go, and I know and trust that I will get there, regardless of what’s going on or happening in my life.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Halogen?
I am the Founder and Executive Director of my organization, Halogen, that raises suicide awareness for Black and Brown trans communities through art. I started the work back in 2022, but fully launched it in December of 2024. I view suicide as a syndemic – a syndemic is two or more epidemics that are connected through behavior, biology, and social factors that result in an enhanced health burden across a population. I believe that the driving factor in suicide is multi-area reduced access to the self. So really the reduced access in the vital conditions of well-being: Thriving Natural World, Basic Needs for Health + Safety, Humane Housing, Meaningful Work + Wealth, Lifelong Learning, Reliable Transportation, and Belonging + Civic Muscle. I think the thing that sets Halogen apart from others in this work is that it’s focused on the soul. At the broadest level, for me, trans is about where the soul needs to live in order to live the most sustainable, fulfilling, and meaningful life. I wrote a book highlighting the difference between meeting someone’s soul versus meeting their physical body to introduce folks to this work. You can learn more about the work and buy the book at halogenproject.com.
I also give presentations to non-profits, groups, companies, etc, about using art to view the soul and learn more about the communities they serve. I’d be happy to chat with anyone who is interested in having me present for their group!
Here is the manifesto I wrote for Halogen:
“At the borderline of time, suicide forced me to come face-to-face with the things I loved most. Importantly, what I loved most about myself – my soul (growth, maturity, decay). We have as much to learn about death as we do life. This is the essential “isness”.
The literal translation of Halogen is “salt-producer” – coming from Greek roots hals “salt” and gen “giving birth to”. Salt is a preservative, a healing agent, a fertilizer, a moving force when things come in contact with it, and the oldest embalming chemical. Halogens are extremely reactive and electronegative – meaning the smaller the atom, the less distance and the stronger ability to attract electrons to it in a bond.
At Halogen, our lifework is suicide awareness in Black and Brown trans communities through visual art. We are creating life givers in story stewardship with gentleness, beauty, and invigorating rawness – the preservation of joy, isness, reunion, and the documentation of another day lived.
For these trans communities, Halogen is a space to explore their soul and the softness, emotiveness, and sweeping genuineness of it. For the viewer, Halogen is an invitation into reimagining their relationship with themselves and a way to experience someone’s soul.
The viewer plays a crucial role in suicide awareness as they’re a witness to the soul and therefore can aid in uplifting and elevating life – becoming life givers themselves.
The closer we are to observing the truth of the soul, the more life we attract.”
What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
The most important lesson I’ve learned is to always trust myself. I tell myself every day, “Do it scared, do it hurt, do it unsure. Do it empowered by the knowledge of your truth. Let your heart break. A new season of you is here. There is protection around you.”
There was a quote from a street interview that has forever changed my perspective on my life and work. The quote is:
“If a bird lands on a branch, does the bird trust the branch or does it trust its wings? The clue is that I’ve seen many birds land on branches, but what I’ve never seen is a branch break and the bird fall and die. Trust your wings.”
Pricing:
- Book – $55
- Presentation Services – Please Contact
Contact Info:
- Website: https://halogenproject.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/remystyrk/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/remystyrk/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@remystyrk
- Other: https://remystyrk.com
