All the Flowers is a Brampton arts collective that is providing an accessible space for people to share their talents despite an English language barrier.
As experienced music artists and community advocates, Noyz and The Original Gurv felt like they always had to go outside of Brampton to get the opportunities they were looking for.
So, Noyz and Gurv quickly came together to put on All the Flowers‘ first open-mic show at the beginning of the year.
“The City of Brampton gets a bad reputation in the media. You see popular social media accounts like 6ixBuzz steadily making posts that paint Brampton in a bad light, as if there’s nothing positive ever going on here. The reality though is that Brampton has been home to artists who have made waves both nationally and internationally over the last decade, from Haviah Mighty and TOBi to Rupi Kaur and Sidhu Moosewala. This event series was inspired by a desire to celebrate our own rather than waiting on other platforms to recognize us,” Noyz told Now Toronto.
Despite not having a lot of time to promote the event, over twenty people showed up, along with special guests like Humble the Poet and Blitzkrieg.
It was through that first event that Noyz and Gurv found motivation to fulfill the community’s need of having a designated physical space to gather and share art for free.
“By having All The Flowers be an accessible physical space, we hope it can foster an environment where creatives can share their works and also connect with others. Brampton has seen a large in-flux of international students from Punjab and other parts of South Asia over the last decade. A lot of these students have artistic ambitions, but performing on stage in a language other than English can be daunting,” Noyz said.
Right now, All the Flowers is hosted at the back of a family owned restaurant at 114 Kennedy Road South.
“Not many spaces are welcoming and accepting of that. With All The Flowers, we want the talent on our stages to authentically reflect the people who live here, regardless of where they come from and what language they speak,” he added.
The Brampton-based organization’s name is inspired by the city’s moniker, “Flower City,” and the popular phrase to “give people their flowers,” or give people unconditional compliments.
Music artist Shivam Wadhwa, known as Shimmm Music, attended the first event in January and is now a headliner for the next show on July 19.
“A lot of my artist friends lived in Brampton and as artists for years now, they had to come all the way down to Toronto to do their shows or even to attend open mics….coming from New Delhi, I have always been around spaces like this back in India and I surely missed it here until All the Flowers was started,” Wadhwa told Now Toronto.
“All The Flowers gives creatives something to look forward to, a chance to meet new people as well as familiar faces so that relationships can continue to grow. One-off events do happen in the city, but knowing that there will be something coming up no matter what happens creates a sense of comfort,” The Original Gurv told Now Toronto.
As for the future, All the Flowers hopes to continue to grow in order to provide paid performance gigs, access to studio spaces and performance venues.
“We’re looking into accessing grants and sponsors to keep the event afloat into 2025 because the community response has shown us how necessary events like this are. On top of being a space to perform and meet other artists, a component that we wish to implement is having industry professionals be present at our events so that there is an opportunity for artists to take home knowledge that can help them take their careers to the next step,” Noyz said.
People can access tickets to the next event to perform or attend on July 19 here.
