Where Art and Activism Bloom
A conversation with Nadia, co-founder of Flower Shop Collective
Welcome to our interview series, Creative Changemakers. Every month, we will be speaking to a different business owner who is using creativity as a tool to build community and create change!
This month, we connected with Nadia Tahoun, co-founder of Flower Shop Collective in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Born from the recognition that many BIPOC artists work for institutions that don't serve their needs, the collective has evolved from hosting roaming shows to establishing a permanent space just before the 2020 pandemic. Inside their studio, you'll find artists and creatives participating in skill-centered workshops (open to the public!), membership programs, and thoughtful critique sessions—all designed to support creators who have historically lacked representation in traditional art spaces.
What stands out most is Flower Shop Collective's commitment to cultivating an environment where emerging artists can share skills, build community, and stay true to their creative vision.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
My name is Nadia Tahoun. I am the co-founder of Flower Shop Collective. We are an art studio and educational hub. We provide fabrication services, consulting, and a third space for artists of the global majority, more specifically Black, Brown, and immigrant artists.
What inspired you to start this space?
Many things inspired us to start this space. My co-founder (Cesar Castro) and I both come from extensive backgrounds in the fine art world of New York City. In our careers, we found that there are many people from the global majority, also known as BIPOC, who work for institutions that do not serve them and do not cater to their own artistic practices.
We worked in studios of all sorts of sizes and did not feel represented or heard. That was the genesis of Flower Shop Collective. Before we had a brick and mortar, we were doing roaming shows and trying to encourage professional art workers who are artists in their own right to feel confident enough to start making their own work.
From there, the space grew. In 2020, we acquired the physical space a few months before the pandemic in New York City. We survived that, and then we opened our doors for membership, which brings us to where we are now.
Where does the name come from?
The name for Flower Shop Collective comes from our first show in 2019 on Valentine's Day. Before we had a physical space, we had a partnership with a large hotel chain in the Lower East Side. We had a Valentine's Day show there, and the theme was a flower shop.
We asked all of our artists who were part of the collective to make their own version of a flower. We called the show "The Flower Shop," and we liked the name, so we kept it.
People sometimes think we're a flower shop, but I wanted to keep the name. I didn't want to have a name like "Institute of X, Y, Z." I think it adds to the playfulness of Flower Shop Collective. We talk about serious things here—decolonial practices, anti-racist work, etc.—but I also want the space to be a place of joy. I truly believe that liberation starts in storytelling and joy, and resistance needs that.
What kind of community do you hope to cultivate at Flower Shop Collective?
We hope to cultivate a community of artists from all sorts of backgrounds—emerging, mid-career, or late career. We want all skill levels in our space. We host workshops for the public very often, and those workshops are almost always designed for any skill level. Our artists who are part of our collective are usually the teachers of these workshops, and we ask them to ensure their workshops can accommodate someone who's never done this before as well as someone who has done it extensively.
We're also membership-driven. There's another part of Flower Shop Collective where members apply to be part of our community. If accepted, we help with any part of your career. We create curated tracks for artists who want to get into an MFA program, teach, or achieve other goals with their practice.
We have all sorts of skill levels here. We have people who have been fabricating around the world for the biggest institutions for a decade or more, and then we have people who just started. We believe that the mixture of those talents and skill sharing is what makes the space special.
How should first-time visitors or members approach being a part of the collective?
If you're coming to our workshops, which are open to the public, you just need to sign up. We have a tab on our website called "Workshops," and we typically host two to three workshops a month. You simply sign up and show up. We usually ask you to wear something that might get dirty, as we have fabrication workshops, mold-making workshops, and ceramic workshops.
Our workshops are really skill-centered, and we want you to learn new hard skills. We also do exhibitions in our space and at bigger fairs as community partners. Just show up as you are.
If you're applying to be a member, our application is on our website. We have a two-tier membership system. One tier gives you access to the physical space as your studio with keys. The other tier makes you part of our larger community, including our WhatsApp group. We've seen genuine friendships form through this. You'll be part of our monthly critique nights where we show works in progress and get feedback from the group, and you'll be included in any curatorial show we participate in.
For the application, I would say make sure that your thesis is strong and that you have a clear point of view. That's really important at Flower Shop—that you're not afraid to speak up about whatever you're passionate about and that you stay firm in your beliefs.
What does creativity mean to you?
Creativity is everything to me. I think that artists are cultural workers. The only reason we know anything about our ancestry or our cultural memory is most likely through art—through textile, language, stories, and cooking. It is almost always the women in our communities who are the caretakers of that culture and arts. So it's really important to me for the survival of our communities.
What would you say is your biggest challenge as a business owner and how do you overcome it?
Our biggest challenge as a business is when exciting opportunities come through that look flashy and appealing, but when you look deeper, they don't align with our politics, goals, or vision. That's when you have to say no. We have to regroup and reaffirm our reason for being, then make decisions accordingly.
We've had to decline some significant opportunities because they didn't align with what my co-founder, the rest of the collective, and I believe in. That is really difficult, especially considering the hard costs of running a business.
I would say to other purpose-driven, mission-driven, BIPOC-owned businesses that there are many people out there struggling in the same way. We just have to stay grounded and keep making decisions that are best for our communities.
Thank you Nadia & Flower Shop Collective! Check them out in Greenpoint and follow their Instagram to stay updated on future events.
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