Matthew Allen awarded grant to host conference at Canadian Centre for Architecture

Senior Lecturer Matthew Allen, along with collaborator Theodora Vardouli at McGill University, were awarded a CAD$22,700 grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to host a conference at the Canadian Centre for Architecture. The two-day Biographies of the Digital conference in Montreal will build on a series of academic events and exhibitions previously hosted by the CCA, inviting an interdisciplinary group of scholars to examine, rekindle, and expand biography as a vital method in studies of design and technology.

The conference — free and open to the public — includes presentations by leading researchers and practitioners like Professor Andrew Witt, moderated discussions, oral histories, and archival workshops aimed at exploring how methods from biography can inform how we examine people, events, and effects of digital technology in design and creative fields; the role of the personal archive in writing such histories; how we can employ biographic approaches in research and writing to reveal hidden voices; and more.