A PhD practice research student at London College of Music, University of West London, leon clowes (www.leonclowes.com) re-embarked on a career as an artist in 2020. As a transdisciplinary practitioner, researching the employment of auto-ethnography as a self-compassionate artistic tool, they expose lived trauma relating to family, queerness, addictions, and self-abuse. leon’s academic writing has been published in three collections, these being Bloomsbury Academic, Palgrave Macmillan and the experimental popular music journal Riffs.