In an era driven by data, what kinds of information counts, and who decides? While we often think of data as numbers, spreadsheets, or digital records, many communities have long relied on oral history, memory, and story as essential forms of knowledge. This event centers lineage as data—the ancestral, cultural, and place-based transmissions that shape who we are, where we are from, and how we belong. What happens when that thread of lineage is broken by displacement, forced migration, incarceration, or structural erasure? And how are people and communities reclaiming connection after these lines have been broken? 

Together, we will explore how oral stories and intergenerational knowledge function as living archives, and how reclaiming them becomes an act of survival, resistance, and repair. This conversation honors lineage as more than ancestry: it is about the wisdom, values, and relationships passed across generations, often outside formal institutions. By connecting this theme to broader questions about data, justice, and representation, we ask: what kinds of knowledge systems have been excluded from dominant data practices? And how might remembering—and reweaving—lineage help restore what’s been lost?

Presented in collaboration with artist and theatrical director Lisa Channer and additional panelists to be announced, this conversation will reflect on memory, identity, and the creative strategies people are using to hold onto the stories that hold them.