Maymana Arefin is a community organiser, artist and writer based in London.
In 2020, Maymana founded @fungi.futures, a space to map radical alternative futures guided by her joy and passion for fungi. Through leading nature immersions, plant and fungi walks, her work focuses on deep rest and healing and restoring our communion with our non-human kin.
Maymana’s award-winning MSc research on how the mycelium networks of fungi may be used as a metaphor for mutual aid seeks to re-imagine an unjust world through a politics of hope. She is strongly committed to justice – in all of its forms – and believes that in order to realise this, we must prioritise care.
Recent publications include her long-form writing, On Fungal Dreams of Liberation (Wasafiri, 2024), a groundbreaking exploration of how fungi and decomposition can inspire abolitionist futures, and The Ways of The Underground (Skin Deep, 2025), a thought piece on how crip-centred, grassroots organising can collapse linear, capitalist framings of time.
Maymana Arefin has collaborated with internationally renowned institutions and galleries, including:
Arts Catalyst, Sheffield (UK)
Barbican Centre, London (UK)
Birmingham & Black Country Wildlife Trust, Birmingham (UK)
Camden Art Centre, London (UK)
Centre for Future Natures, Falmer (UK)
Hayward Gallery, London (UK)
Institute of International Visual Arts, London (UK)
Natural History Museum, London (UK)
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (UK)
School of Commons, Zürich (CH)
Somerset House, London (UK)
South London Gallery, London (UK)
Studio Voltaire, London (UK)
Take Me Somewhere, Glasgow (UK)
Victoria & Albert Museum, London (UK)
180 Studios, London (UK)
Photo credit: Alia Romagnoli