Our Home & OUr Work: FLORISTRY WORKSHOP

Join Waard Ward collective and curator Nashwa Lina Khan for a hands-on bouquet-making workshop in Dentonia Park. 

Waard Ward utilizes floristry and gardening to offer support to newcomer and refugee communities.  Together, we will re-imagine how we might better recognize the work and skills of newcomers. We wish to embody a future where the labour and expertise of newcomers is valued, and barriers to meaningful work are addressed through community-led supports. 

Learning about floristry and flowers, participants are invited to design a small bouquet they can take home. 

Attendees will have the opportunity to view Flowers for Dentonia Park: بيتنا و عملنا (Our Home & Our Work) photography installation in Dentonia Park.

Refreshments served!

This event is a part of Mayworks’ Closing Celebration. All Mayworks Festival events are free. 

Abd Al-Mounim is a Syrian florist from Aleppo. He has worked in the floral industry for more than 15 years, designing small and large arrangements for concerts, weddings, and special events. Abd emigrated to Canada in 2016 and is keen to share his passion for flower arranging with people from diverse backgrounds.

Hanen Nanaa is one of the youngest social entrepreneurs in Canada. She is a war survivor and refugee from Syria who made Toronto her home in 2016. As the founder of the Books Art Music (BAM) Collective, Nanaa has created a powerful community hub to empower youth and equity-deserving people through policy, art, innovation, and community engagement. Her commitment to social innovation was recognized when BAM Collective was awarded as the top finalist for the Toronto Arts for Youth Award in 2021.

Nanaa has also worked for various local and international organizations. She is a recipient of the Alterna Prize for Women’s Social Leaders in 2022, recognizing her leadership in civic, environmental and community-based initiatives as well as social enterprises. She was named the UN Women – Woman of the Year at UofT in 2019, and in 2021, Hanen was also featured on CBC’s The Dream Team and received mentorship from Manjit Minhas, the famous venture capitalist from Dragons’ Den.

Nashwa Lina Khan (she/her) is a community educator, facilitator, and researcher. She is also a writer and poet and occasionally dabbles in installation and archive that uses narrative methodologies. She holds a Masters of Environmental Studies from York University with areas of concentration focused on narrative methodologies, community and public health, refugee, and forced migration studies. She is currently a PhD student in the faculty of Environment and Urban Change and curating/supporting the On Display/For Review artist residency at Whippersnapper. nashwa is currently working on a chapbook project, with the BIPOC advisory committee at telefilm Canada and a researcher with Proclaiming Our Roots, the University of Alberta and Rainbow Faith and Freedom. you can find her cultural commentary on the podcast Habibti Please and on twitter where you can find her tweeting too little or too much.

Waard Ward creates floral arrangements, builds community gardens, and invites newcomers to train as florists and imagine social-entrepreneurial futures. Collectively led by Syrian florist Abd Al-Mounim, community organizers/newcomers Hanen Nanaa and Shoruk Alsakni, educator Laura Ritacca, curator/educator Patricia Ritacca, and artist Petrina Ng, Waard Ward collaborates in floristry, decolonial research, and newcomer support. Waard Ward’s name proposes the idea of a diasporic flower district; “waard” is a romanization of the Arabic word for flower.