Oliver Wendell Holmes Travel Award: Matthew Yang

Matthew Yang, who is pursuing a master of arts degree in moving image archiving and preservation at New York University, is the 2023 recipient of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Travel Award from the Society of American Archivists (SAA). The award enables international archivists who are training or studying in the United States or Canada to augment their experience by attending the SAA Annual Meeting

In all his archival work, Yang seeks to find creative solutions and advocate for archives, particularly for audiovisual preservation. He received a bachelor of communication studies in cinema and art history from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. While there, Yang organized talks on audiovisual preservation and film restoration for film students. In 2017, he joined the Asian Film Archive as an archives officer. In that role, Yang managed numerous film restoration projects that premiered at international film festivals, such as Cannes and Rotterdam. He also designed a new canister carrier bag to assist archives employees in transporting film collections between their offices and the vault, which were several blocks apart. Yang's goal after completing his studies is to develop a digital preservation and literacy program in Southeast Asia. Attendance at the 2023 Joint Annual Meeting will enable Yang to connect with international colleagues. Yang wrote in his application, "I hope to use the conference to get feedback and suggestions to improve my ideas to achieve the digital preservation curriculum I envision."

Established in 1979, this award honors SAA Fellow and past president Oliver Wendell Holmes. Past recipients include Chaeyeon Kim (South Korea), Jiarui Sun (China), Klavier Jie Ying Wang (China), and Tianjiao Qi (China).