An Archive as a Space for Gathering’, will bring Flowershop Collective artists together to ask a question: how can one archive oral histories, and is it even possible?
Utilizing a myriad of different artistic mediums, our artists’ pieces highlight what is felt, and not seen, through the passing of generations. In different ways, each artist expresses how they archive the stories their environments whisper to them.
This curated selection of 6 artists will be on display in Harana Market’s outside yard area for four days from Thursday, July 17 - Sunday, July 21. We invite you to join us for a meal and to enjoy the artworks for the following artists:
Samhita Kamisetty
Jay Katelansky
Sanie Irsay
Kaarina Chu Mackenzie
Nadia Tahoun
Cesar Kastro
We are also hosting a Natural Dying workshop led by Samhita Kamisetty, which will take place on Saturday, July 19 at 2:00 pm. Tickets are limited and cost $70 each.
ARTISTS
Samhita Kamisetty
Samhita Kamisetty is a Brooklyn-based visual artist with roots in Portland and Bangalore. Her multidisciplinary practice spans illustration, ceramics, natural dyeing, and design, exploring themes of materiality, memory, and function through narratives drawn from rituals and everyday life. Weaving family archives with culturally embedded materials, she reframes tradition through a contemporary lens. In addition to exhibiting internationally, Samhita leads natural dye workshops centered on the bundle dye technique, partnering with brands and community spaces such as Ace Hotel New York, The North Face, Hike Clerb, Index Space, and Common Things. She holds a BFA in Studio Art and Communications from NYU.
Jay Katelansky
Jay Katelansky received her MA and an MFA at The University of Wisconsin Madison. She received her BFA from Moore College of Art and Design. Jay Katelansky's work questions how Black bodies, including her own, navigate space in the United States. The questions she’s been processing are: What does safe mean? How does safe feel? Is safety a place? Is it a person? Is safety an unattainable condition? Who gets to be safe? Are you safe?
Sanie Irsay
Sanie Irsay is a Crimean Tatar artist based between New York, NY, and Arnhem, NL. Working across mediums like sculpture, drawing, print ,and film, she is centrally concerned with social and spatial structures, zones of inclusion, exclusion, and exception.
Kaarina Chu Mackenzie
Kaarina Chu Mackenzie is a Taiwanese-American painter based in Woodstock, NY. Her work explores memory, identity, and belonging through richly layered oil paintings that often begin with her own photographs. Blending photo transfer techniques with traditional painting, Kaarina reconstructs personal and inherited narratives—drawing from childhood in Beijing, familial ties to Taiwan, and the complexities of diasporic identity. Her series examines the politics of place and perception, from intimate depictions of family life to broader reflections on displacement and cultural hybridity. Through her process-driven approach, Kaarina creates spaces where absence, memory, and history converge.
Nadia Tahoun
Nadia Tahoun is an artist, curator, and MSW candidate at Hunter College based in the Hudson Valley. She is the Co-Founder and Director of Flower Shop Collective, an art studio and educational hub supporting emerging artists through mentorship, resource-sharing, and community-centered exhibitions. Her work explores resilience, memory, and collective storytelling, often engaging with histories of trauma. With an undergraduate degree in Media & Culture Studies from Parsons, she approaches curation through a political and social lens. Nadia has exhibited internationally and led workshops with institutions such as Amnesty International,Global Diversity Foundation and the NYC Mayor’s Office of Labor Relations.
