Melanie Schambach is a Latinx social artist, visual facilitator, and arts-based engagement specialist whose work centers collective emergent imagination and social integration. For more than twenty years, she has designed participatory art processes that invite people of all ages, backgrounds, and sectors to share and witness stories, insights, and hopes. Through her practice, she explores concepts of identity, humanism, and sociology. 

Melanie blends formal academic training with practice-based certifications and lived experience. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Emily Carr University of Art and Design (2006), complemented by interdisciplinary training in trauma-informed practice, art therapeutic methodologies, strength-based coaching, embodied movement, voice work, clowning, and conflict transformation. This integrative foundation informs a facilitation approach grounded in equity-centered design, culturally responsive practice, and psychological safety. Her work creates learning and creative environments that support reflective dialogue, collaborative meaning-making, and the development of creative confidence across diverse academic, cultural, and community settings.

Raised in the fog forests of Dapa, Colombia, and shaped by later life in Guatemala and Canada, Melanie’s worldview is informed by lived experiences of migration, liminality, and difference, held together by a sustained commitment to social responsibility and relational accountability. These experiences deepened her belief that artistic expression is not limited to professional artists, but is a vital part of human resilience and collective well-being. In 2024, she relocated to Denver, USA, where she continues to collaborate with local and international partners.

Her participatory artworks and research-based projects have been featured at the Seattle Art Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, and Harbour Centre in Vancouver. She has partnered with universities, grassroots organizations, Indigenous leaders, museums, youth programs, and cross-sector coalitions throughout the Americas and Europe. A TEDx speaker, Melanie shares her approach through talks, training, and community-based initiatives that highlight how art can cultivate deeper mutual understanding, strengthen relational ecosystems, and open imaginative pathways toward more integrated and interconnected ways of being.