about

Malinalli Gardens curates dynamic skillshares and projects in public spaces, bringing artists and communities together to learn, create, and collaborate. We transform shared spaces into hubs of creativity, fostering connections through hands-on making and collective knowledge.

We believe in the power of public spaces as platforms for learning and artistic exchange. By connecting artists and friends through skill-sharing, we cultivate a culture of creativity, collaboration, and community-driven transformation.

Hananne Hanafi is a cultural strategist and creative placemaker with over fifteen years of experience working at the intersection of arts administration, community engagement, and public space activation. Trained in Anthropology and Media Arts at DePaul University, her practice centers cultural memory, collective storytelling, and collaborative learning. She has led youth and adult arts programming across community-based organizations in Chicago, producing large-scale murals, artist residencies, and cross-disciplinary programming grounded in cultural identity and place.

As founder of Malinalli Gardens, Hanafi curates travel-based art research, public art projects, and ongoing skill-share courses that bring artists and communities together to co-create meaning in shared space. Her work is informed by an ethnographic approach that foregrounds lived experience, intergenerational knowledge, and the role of art in shaping community agency and belonging.