By posting photos from subsequent trees to her Facebook every day, she quickly gained recognition and got into contact with a group of Kraków activists committed to protecting the environment. Later, she found out from one of them that a new housing development was planned on the grounds of Zakrzówek, a picturesque lagoon on the grounds of a former limestone quarry and a popular place to relax during the spring and summer time. Keeping the common green space, one of the few in a city whose residents cannot complain about an excess of parks, called for joint action. Malik grouped up with a group of artists with whom she founded Modraszek Kolektyw. Soon it was also joined by other people unrelated to art – activists and residents who cared about protecting the place. The name of the group was derived from the name of a protected butterfly – the scarce large blue – which could be found in Zakrzówek.
The visual theme of the protests organised by the collective – sky blue wings – also referred to the butterfly. Hundreds of participants of ‘zlot modraszków’ (mass gatherings of people) in Zakrzówek and the centre of Kraków wore butterfly wings painted sky-blue with acrylic paint. Thanks to the striking visual elements of the protests, they quickly attracted the attention of the local and national media. In the end, the action which was initially deemed as doomed to fail by many, including some activists, turned out to be a success. In September 2011 the local government introduced a new local land management plan for Zakrzówek, as a result of which the developer opted out from this investment, considering it unprofitable.
Modraszek Kolektyw began a series of activist, collective realisations by Malik, organised with the aim of protecting certain places from the commodification of the public space. Each action had an expressive visual leitmotif. In 2017 Malik initiated an action called Warkocze Białki (Białka’s Braids) as a protest against irrigating and draining the Białka river, which was proposed by the government. In order to keep this mountain river, one of the few that was still in its natural state, intact, Malik organised a ‘how to braid’ event in Bunkier Sztuki Gallery. The braid was supposed to reach the length of the river. Eventually, a braid over five kilometres long was plaited. A year later, when the late-modernist Cracovia hotel was to be knocked down so that another shopping centre could be constructed, Malik, in collaboration with, among others, the artist Mateusz Okoński, initiated a protest entitled Chciwość.Miasta (Greed.Cities). This time gold dominated: gold costumes, banners with dollar and Euro signs, and lastly, alluding to the Bible – a golden calf sitting in a shopping cart. Malik explained the title of this happening in an interview with Marta Świetlik, published in Obieg magazine:
"Miasta" (Cities) is the title of a wall mosaic by Helena and Roman Husarski, which was discovered by Mateusz in Hotel Cracovia. Greed? Hotel Cracovia, which is a monument of modernist architecture, has been cheated by greed. The investor and local authorities claim that there is no point in renovating it as it could cost more than building a whole new shopping centre in its place.
In the end, the hotel from the times of late Polish modernism was preserved. It had better luck than Pawilon Chemii or Pawilon Emilia, two demolished modernist pavilions which were located in Warsaw, as the hotel was purchased by the National Museum which has its headquarters across the street, and is now being rebuilt and renovated to become another department of the museum.
Malik kept returning to the motif of rivers – Warkocze Białki began to live a life of its own, and was displayed at international exhibitions and used by activists as a symbol in the fight to save other rivers. Malik also initiated Wodna Masa Krytyczna (Water Critical Mass) together with Gocha Nieciecka and Martyna Niedośpiał – a rafting event on the Wisła every year to protect rivers.
Malik concentrated on the Cracovian tributaries of the Wisła in her project 6 Rzek (6 Rivers) carried out in 2011 and 2012. Although it departed from the protest’s aesthetics, it was more intimate and referred to children’s games. It had the form of documentation similar to the earlier 365 Drzew (365 Trees). Malik sailed across all of the Wisła’s river basins from the administrative boundaries of the town to their estuaries in a boat she’d made herself, focusing on the specificities of each and the characteristic natural reserves that surround them. Each journey is captured in a series of photos and films devoted to each of the rivers.