Working across complexity

Sustainability challenges increasingly require interdisciplinary collaboration, yet working across disciplines brings not only differences in knowledge, disciplinary language, and expertise, but also process and relational challenges that are often under-attended. This workshop focuses on the practical process of interdisciplinary collaboration for sustainability, with particular attention to how groups move intentionally from shared visioning to concrete next steps. Participants will explore creative, systems-informed approaches that support sense-making, dialogue, and coordination across disciplines through low-threshold, participatory activities that invite reflection on collaboration as an intentional practice rather than an assumed outcome. This will include arts-based processes; however no artistic skill is required.

About the workshop facilitators

Heather McLaughlin is an Assistant Professor and Art Therapy Program Coordinator in the Department of Creative Arts Therapies at Concordia University. She is the founder and director of the Concordia Arts in Health Centre, an innovative university-based initiative that integrates clinical services, community partnerships, and research to advance access to creative arts therapies and arts-in-health practices. Her work focuses on creative, systemic, and relational approaches to health and well-being, interdisciplinary collaboration, and climate action, including the C-Change events initiative, which brings communities across sectors and disciplines together to explore creative and collective responses to the climate crisis. She has been a practicing clinical art therapist, couple and family therapist, and psychotherapist for over 20 years.

Annabelle Brault holds the Sandra and Alain Bouchard Professorship in Music Therapy at Concordia University, and has been teaching since 2018 in the Creative Arts Therapies department. She is a certified music therapist and a PhD candidate in the Individualized Fine Arts program at Concordia. Her research explores how musicking can enhance digital well-being among youth and drive social change, as well as how resource-oriented practices can foster more inclusive clinical and educational spaces.