Matthew Tomkinson (b. 1989) is a writer, composer, and researcher based in Vancouver.

He holds a PhD in Theatre Studies from the University of British Columbia, where he studied sound within the Deaf, Disability, and Mad arts. His doctoral dissertation, “Mad Auralities: Sound and Sense in Contemporary Performance,” examines auditory representations of mental health differences. His academic essays have appeared, or are forthcoming, with Oxford University Press, Palgrave Macmillan, Bloomsbury Publishing, Anthem Press, and more.

Working across a wide range of disciplines, including text, performance, installation, sound design, and new media, Matthew’s artistic practice centres around constraint-based composition, creative misuse, and the exploration of perceptual thresholds. Across multiple disciplines, his work shows a recurring interest in patternicity and formal experimentation.

His debut audiovisual album as Mathoms, The Woe Trumpets, is out with Decaying Spheres, along with an accompanying film that has been presented at Sound Scene Festival (Washington, USA) and Chapeltown Picture House (Manchester, UK). Together with Andy Zuliani, Matthew also presents collaborative sound art under the name Magazinist.

Matthew’s music for dance, theatre, and film has been presented locally and nationally at CBC Gem, Vancouver International Film Festival, Festival du nouveau cinéma de Montréal, and the PuSh Festival, among many others. His work has also been exhibited internationally throughout Canada, Germany, Austria, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, Bosnia, Kosovo, the US, and the UK, at venues and festivals such as Film at Lincoln Center (New York), VALÈIFF (Madrid), TANZAHOi (Hamburg), and more. Recent collaborators and commissions include Ballet BC, Company 605, Ace Co Pro, Kinesis Somatheatro, Magazinist, Eric Cheung, and the All Bodies Dance Project.

He is the author of oems (Guernica Editions, 2022), Paroxysms (Paper View Books, 2022), For a Long Time (Frog Hollow Press, 2019), and Archaic Torso of Gumby (Gordon Hill Press, 2020), co-authored with Geoffrey D. Morrison. His shorter writings have appeared in publications such as Literary Hub, Minor Literature[s], Full Stop, Exacting Clam, The Ex-Puritan, and others.

Matthew lives on the ancestral and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.