
Clyde Petersen
Anacortes, WA
Clyde Petersen is a white, transmasculine Northwest artist, working in film, animation, music and installation. He re-creates lost worlds and documents culture that has been largely erased by AIDS, capitalism and gentrification. He works to offer alternate, more equitable realities and futures through the reexamination of overlooked histories. His work is slow and patient, animating only a few seconds of film a day, gathering new oral histories and building scale-model worlds to tell stories in. Clyde collaborated with the Northwest band Earth for five years, interviewing and touring with them to create the documentary film Even Hell has its Heroes.
This feature film is shot entirely on Super 8mm. It premiered at CPH:DOX and SIFF in 2023 and toured around the world in the 2023/2024 festival season. His first feature, Torrey Pines, a stop motion animated autobiographical film about growing up with a schizophrenic mother as a queer youth in the early ‘90s premiered in 2016 and toured the world for two years, accompanied by his band, Your Heart Breaks, performing the live score and foley. Clyde has been the recipient of the Artist Innovators Award, The Neddy at Cornish, The Stranger Genius Award, Amazon Artist Residency and the NEFA Touring Artists Grant. He is represented by J. Rinehart Gallery in Seattle.

Clyde Petersen, image from Our Forbidden Country, 2024. Stop motion animation. Photographer: Clyde Petersen
Our Forbidden Country
Clyde Petersen is a transmasculine Northwest artist, working in film, animation, music and installation.
Artist BioOur Forbidden Country is a stop-motion animated feature film about a transmasculine person navigating desire and fantasy in a world where traditional gender roles are left behind in exchange for a liberated future. Enter a secret world of underground queer bars, XXX theaters, bathhouses, all-night diners, punk clubs and LGBTQ+ community spaces.
The film follows a young white transmasculine person, new to the city, on a journey through the night. He explores the historic gay XXX-theater Sultan’s Lavender Cinema, kisses the singer at queer punk show, and stumbles underground into a dark leather dungeon. After-hours, he arrives at the infamous disco The Monastery, an old church converted into a club. Hungry, he finds his way to The Clock diner, a 24-hour community gathering space, and, as the sun rises, he boards a ferry, headed back to his island home.
Our Forbidden Country is directed and animated by Clyde Petersen with an original score by Blutbraüer. Upon its release, the film will be presented with a live score and live foley at select screenings.