Consent-Based Body Painting was developed while Malena was serving as the program coordinator for CounterAct, the arts-based sexual violence prevention program at Arizona State University. She earned a seed grant to host the project. After developing the initial outline, she collaborated with nationally acclaimed body painting artist, Brandon McGill to develop the workshop. Brandon was able to provide a professional perspective on how to communicate with clients through vulnerable situations, emphasizing the importance of having communication and consent through every step of a body painting experience.

Consent is often something we talk about, but rarely show people how to practice it. Consent-Based Body Painting offers a safe way for participants to embody the practice of consent communication, framing the interaction as a client/professional engagement. Artists may encounter vulnerable situations in their work where they need to be aware of consent with a client or how to set boundaries clearly in a professional manner for themselves.

Consent-Based Body Painting was launched in October 2018 as part of a school-wide, cross-disciplinary workshop day held across the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. Reservations for both workshops were filled to capacity, with two groups of 30 students participating.

Participants were guided through each step of the process. We started with introductions around the room, asking each person to state their name, major and favorite artist. This allowed participants to find commonalities or interest with others in the room before choosing their partner.

Every step of the process involves consent. Finding a partner, choosing who will paint or be painted, where to paint, what to paint, which color, etc. We invited each participant to experiment with the interaction, asking them to change their minds during the interaction at some point.

At the end of the workshop, we asked everyone to offer a statement of meaning from their experience. The impact that was described by participants was deeper than we expected. A non-binary student spoke about how the process helped them feel more love and acceptance for their body, they felt the practice would be helpful for other queer people. A sexual violence survivor stated that she didn’t like being touched, but that the paintbrush felt like a safe form of connection.

View Brandon McGill’s website >

While at ASU, Malena trained under professor Michael Rohd (founder of the Center for Civic Practice) to learn Creative Facilitation, which she has adapted to engage with music festival participants, college students and start-up communities.

• Cohere co:lab opening and closing ceremonies: Guided a group of about 25 participants through grounding and connection exercises that helped people break through the boundaries of a new situation and group more quickly. The closing ceremony included reflection exercises that allowed people to share what they experienced over the two-week retreat.

• Party Pro Toolkit workshops: Malena has hosted conversation-based workshops at Lunar Escapade (2018) June Jam (2019, 2022) and Arcosanti Convergence (2019). She opens the workshop by sharing about her research in party culture and some of her key observations. Then she guides the participants through conversation exercises to provide an opportunity for people to listen and engage with ideas and personal experiences. These workshops are designed to help ground participants in their purpose for attending the festival and build deeper connections with other attendees. Participants have reported that they’ve built new relationships through these workshops that have lasted beyond the festival.

Malena has utilized design thinking practices to guide groups through ideation and collective problem-solving.

• Consent and party culture focus groups. As part of her graduate research, Malena led several focus groups to explore ways in which the individuals either felt safe or unsafe in party environments, further exploring how venues and participants might be able to influence positive change in events and consent culture.

• StarGate ReUnion ideation session. Malena designed an ideation process with her team before the second iteration of the StarGate ReUnion festival. Members documented their feedback on the last event and ideas for the next event on sticky notes, then organized similar ideas into groups and further explored the themes through facilitated conversation. This process allowed for the team to communicate their ideas without hierarchy, observe where they were similar or different, and collaborate on steps to move forward.

Malena has served as the coordinator and host of workshops for several events and festivals, both as the curator and host.

• Full Moon Festival Forum. For three months before the pandemic, Malena led the curation and development of a workshop area at a successful monthly event in Phoenix. The Full Moon Festival was attracting more than 2,000 attendees each month with five stages, an art gallery, fire performances and art installations. Malena served as the host and emcee, speaking about consent and party culture between each presenter.