Melanie is a Philippine-born interdisciplinary artist and designer from New York. In 2015, she went on a search to find alternative ways of living- away from cities, which brought her to California’s Mojave desert. Here she learned about earth building and permaculture at Cal Earth Institute before eventually landing herself in the Peruvian Amazon; where she lived three formative years in the town of Puerto Maldonado, learning about the nature and indigenous realities across the region of Madre de Dios and along the Las Piedras River. She came on board to work with Xapiri Ground in 2019 as creative director for exhibitions, projects, marketing, and communications.