Claye Bowler (b. 1995) is an artist living and working in West Yorkshire. His work explores the archive – body as archive, memory as archive, and looking at the ways that we collect and archive institutionally, socially and personally. He is interested in the political priorities of history, specifically around how queer and trans narratives have been perpetually hidden, erased or destroyed.
Bowler uses sculpture and performance to subvert these practices by creating physical & virtual archives of his own relationships, experiences, possessions; to embed encounters into the inherent archive of his own body; as well as creating interactive installations denoting the fragility of history.
More recently, Bowler’s work has focused around the physical transition of their body: the lead up to surgeries and the violence of the (stalled) wait involved under the diminished funding and care of the NHS.
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