Emil Cañita is a trans Filipino-Australian artist, sex worker, and HIV activist living and working in Naarm, Melbourne. Their work moves between photography, performance, and installation, exploring representation, sexuality, and intimacy, often in places normally left unseen, such as glory holes.

Their practice centers on making people from the sex industry visible, with a particular focus on the diversity of men who work there. As an HIV-undetectable sex worker, Cañita actively combats stigma surrounding HIV and indirectly sexual autonomy, dignity, and care. Their work effectively serves as a tribute to queer activists and artists of the past, and to the batteries that sustain them.

Cañita’s photography, often executed in large Polaroids, approaches intimacy as a form of radical empathy. By emphasizing proximity and trust, the work invites the viewer to let go of fixed ideas about gender, sexuality, and identity. Emil Cañita rose to fame online as Babydilf and recently presented the solo exhibition At First I Was Afraid at MARS Gallery.