In Conversation: Collaborative & Interdisciplinary Projects at Milieux

For the past 10 years, the Milieux Institute has served as a hub for creative experimentation. Drawing members from across Concordia University, Milieux fosters interdisciplinary work through both its programming and its infrastructure. While research clusters regularly host their own activities (workshops, book launches, guest talks, roundtables, etc.), the Institute’s broader mandate is to support and initiate cross-cluster activities and organize institute-wide events that connect our research community. This vision extends to the infrastructure itself: working and common spaces are designed to encourage and facilitate these connections. At Milieux, cluster spaces and research labs are open and designed to bring together researchers from different backgrounds.

In this panel discussion, we invite members to highlight three collaborative projects made possible by Milieux’s model: the Montreal Waterway Collective, the NOSTAGAIN Network, and, more recently, the Orange Shirt Day Workshop hosted by IFRC in collaboration with Textiles and Materiality and the MaSH Lab.

This conversation will be moderated by Dr. Bart Simon.

ABOUT THE PROJECTS:

Polina Shubina and Patrizio McLelland* will present the Montreal Waterways Collective, an ethnographic research-creation group based in the Concordia Ethnography Lab within Milieux’s Speculative Life Cluster. The Montreal Waterways project aims to reconnect Montréal with its surrounding waters, treating water as a dynamic thread connecting past and future, environment and infrastructure. In bringing ethnography closer to home, the group conducts research into the various “water objects” that shape the city’s past, present, and future.

Derek Pasborg, Richy Srirachanikorn*, and Zo Makivna will discuss the NOSTAGAIN Network, a student-led research collective formed at the Technoculture, Art and Games (TAG) Research Centre in 2022. Since its inception, the collective has brought together artists, writers, designers, and researchers to explore and reflect on the generative potentials of nostalgia.

Hanss Lujan Torres, curator of The Earth We Carry (currently on view at the FOFA Gallery), will talk about the Orange Shirt Day Workshop, a collaborative initiative that was developed in partnership with the Indigenous Futures Research Centre (IFRC), the Textiles and Materiality Cluster, and the MaSH Lab.

*Hexagram members

November 4, 2026 

3:30-4:30 PM 

 Milieux Resource Room EV 11.705