The Comunidades Floreciendo Art Project, or Flourishing Communities, is a creative invitation for us to think about what it takes for us to grow as individuals and as a community. The aim of this community-based art project is to celebrate and showcase Tennessee’s diverse Latinx and immigrant community as symbolized by flower art pieces created by the community. This exhibition can be viewed at the Casa Azáfran Art Gallery between May 9, 2022 and June 17, 2022.

Flowers represent our community’s beautiful diversity, strength, and resilience. They grow in many unique conditions, and their seeds, like people, can be transplanted and grown in many different places.

Tennessee is the home of people from around the world. If you were a flower, what flower would you be? Where do you grow best? What makes you flourish and grow? 

Since August of 2021, a total of eight local artists of diverse and immigrant backgrounds, and two local organizations, facilitated nine workshops and online campaigns that centered around national flowers representing 14 Latin American countries, the United States, and Puerto Rico.

Comunidades Floreciendo Flowers represented in the exhibition

Cantuta – Kantuta, National Flower of Peru and Bolivia  

Sacuanjoche – Plumeria, National Flower of Nicaragua 

Orquídea – Orchid, National Flower of Panama, Venezuela, 

Honduras, Guatemala, Colombia, and Costa Rica 

La Mariposa – Butterfly Jasmine, National Flower of Cuba 

Flor de Izote – Yucca Flower, National Flower El Salvador 

Dalia – Dahlia, National Flower of Mexico  

Flor de Maga – Hibiscus, National Flower of Puerto Rico 

Rose – Rosa de Bayahibe, National Flower of Ecuador, Dominican Republic, 

and the United States

Over 180 individuals from the community, spanning 3 counties, participated in this project. The results are the 34 flower art pieces, poetry, and installations exhibited throughout the gallery. 

Throughout the project, we encouraged our community to create their flower pieces alongside a reflection of their own stories of movement and resilience using the Flower Poem below. Their poems are incorporated throughout the exhibition. 

As you enjoy each Flower piece, we encourage you to take part in the exhibition by reflecting on their words and on what makes you flourish and grow. Please feel free to fill out The Comunidades Floreciendo Flower Poem.

The Comunidades Floreciendo poem

Communidades Floreciendo Poem

This exhibition is a project of Conexión Américas and is funded by the Tennessee Arts Commission.

This exhibition is a project of Conexión Américas and is funded by the Tennessee Arts Commission.

At Conexión Américas, our mission is to build a welcoming community and create opportunities where Latino families can belong, contribute, and succeed.

We are grateful to the following artists and organizations for supporting this project and contributing art to the Comunidades Floreciendo exhibition. 

Valentina Harper, Flower Print Cards

What makes you grow and flourish, Valentina?

“I am a resilient flower.
I need creativity and bright spaces.
I grow in vibrant spaces.
I flourish in colorful places.”

Andrés Bustamante, Orquídea, Polypropylene sculptures

“I always think of the journey of the seed.
It’s small, full of potential, yet alone.
The seed is buried deep underground and forgotten. It’s cold. It’s wet. It cannot see the light of day.
It has to die.
Then one day the seed grows and grows and grows and just cannot help but be fruitful.
That seed is me. That seed is you.”

Turnip Green Creative Reuse, Dalia, Acrylic Print

Turnip Green Creative Reuse is a non-profit with a mission of fostering creativity and sustainability through reuse.

Cesar Virto, Flor de Maga, Photograph

“As a child my father would take the whole family to a construction site to help work. We all participated in doing something to help move the job faster. During early years we all did not know much about work, but we had ambition. Most of the time my siblings and I oversaw cleaning of the area.

If my father saw us fighting on the job site, the job description did get more rigorous. After finishing up each job site my mother would ask one of siblings to translate to the owner of the house if she could take a stem of a flower so she could replant it in her garden.

The flowers are still blooming at her house after all these years. I like flowers because they remind me of my mother, and it takes me back to those early memories when we first moved to the USA. ”

A.M. HASSAN, Daybreak Arts, Rose- Acrylic on canvas

Daybreak Arts is a social enterprise nonprofit that creates artistic and economic opportunities for people experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity by providing them access to creative resources needed to achieve personal fulfillment and success.

Elizabeth de la Peña, Flor de Izote, Watercolor and ink

Sarah Bennet, Estableciendo Raíces – Growing Roots, Mixed media installation.