Design leaders are at a threshold: expected to lead with certainty while managing constant reinvention, decision fatigue, and the unacknowledged grief of organizational change. Join this interactive session to experience rituals and practical frameworks designed to hold space for vulnerability and the emergence of new possibilities.

Death, dying, and grief are among the most deeply human experiences we all share, and yet they can be some of the hardest to talk about. This talk looks at how participatory installations in public spaces offer a different way to engage with these topics: outside the clinical, and through creative, collective experience. Drawing on experience creating installations across project work, collaborations with health services researchers, and community arts events, Karen reflects on what becomes possible when people are invited to participate in something shared, and how what they leave behind can also become a meaningful, complementary way of understanding human experience alongside more familiar research methods.

Bereavement leave was never meant to solve what grief leaves behind. But the back to "business as usual" hustle has created an environment where a moment in time solution stands in for a social-emotional reckoning. In this workshop, participants will learn how the history of bereavement leave shapes our thinking about loss, the hidden costs of unaddressed grief, and how we can design systems and cultures that meet better match the realities of living with loss.

What is like to launch a creative and collaborative project from a place of personal grief? How does it evolve as grief evolves?

We'll ask Adam to share his experiences creating and evolving the 2026 GRAMMY® nominated work, Inheritances, through the lens of service design. Join us for this informal conversation between Adam Tendler and SDGC Virtual Event Lead Agusta Callaway.