Meet Flor Khan

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Flor Khan. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Flor, thank you so much for joining us and offering your lessons and wisdom for our readers. One of the things we most admire about you is your generosity and so we’d love if you could talk to us about where you think your generosity comes from.

My father was a generous man, I remember one day I was visiting him back home in California, and he had pulled a man off the street during the holidays. He yelled into the kitchen, “Neg, we got any food?” My mother was busily preparing a lunch for us. He grabbed a plate and gave it to the man, “Come, hermano.” I was seated on the living room couch, staring at the stranger, bewildered by how and why my father had brought him here. I later found out he was living on the street. My father turned to me and said, “I remember when I walked here how I had nothing to eat.” His eyes filled with tears.

Whenever I think of my win or my liberation, it is bound to others. If I have, I must share. This is how I was raised and how I will forever live my life. My father taught me to give; to be generous is to be one with your humanity and others’.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

My art journey has always been deeply shaped by my work in the movement. I began merging art and social justice after Occupy Wall Street, when I realized that art was a powerful way to amplify and honor the voices of the masses. From my early years in organizing, I developed an art practice that explored themes of identity, memory, and migration. Later, I moved to Berlin to start a nonprofit focused on art as a healing practice through dance, movement, and breath. Although I had spent much of my career in writing—especially in research and academia—Berlin gave me the time and space to approach my writing through a more healing lens. It allowed me to explore how art can serve as a tool for liberation.

During the pandemic, my practice took a turn. I started using whatever materials I had around me in my apartment—paper, magazines, and scraps of cardboard. I became captivated by collage, which became a meditative way of storytelling. For me, it was a metaphor for everything I had been trying to express in my other art practices. The themes of home(land), memory, and migration felt like an assemblage of pieces, trying to make sense of a fragmented world. Today, collage has evolved into a central part of my practice, helping me facilitate stories of self and our connection to the ever-evolving world around us. I’ve also led workshops that explore the social justice ecosystem, identity, and how we show up in movement spaces.

One of my ongoing projects is my novel, The Long (Re)turn Home, which retraces the steps my father took in walking to the U.S. Writing this book has been a slow, tender process since my father’s passing, but it’s also been profoundly healing and reflective. After moving back to the U.S. from Berlin, I co-founded a writing group for writers of color here in New York City. Our collective, called Pen to Purpose, has been an enriching project that not only supports my own writing journey but also helps others develop their craft. Next year, we plan to release our first magazine, Crossroads. The magazine will feature stories from writers of color across all five boroughs.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Looking back, I would say that diligence, curiosity, and a deep calling for justice have truly guided my journey—and continue to shape the way I show up in the world and approach my art. My drive to explore art more deeply is rooted in the injustice I witness daily. I had a very challenging childhood, and it wasn’t until adulthood that I began to understand the struggles my family faced—poverty, addiction, and incarceration. My political engagement began when I started studying systems of oppression and how they function to keep “the haves” separate from “the have-nots.” Outside of academia, art became a language that didn’t require intellectualization, a space where code-switching wasn’t always necessary. Art became a voice for the people, a shared language—a liberatory practice.

As I continue to learn and grow, I’ve developed a genuine curiosity about how one might dismantle systems of oppression from within. This curiosity has become a kind of internal, meditative practice. The diligence to keep going, to move beyond just asking questions, is what ultimately drives my creative work. Showing up every day—or every week—for an ongoing project creates consistency, and consistency builds habits. When we build healthy habits into our lives, we start living into our purpose. If I were to offer any advice to artists on their journey, it would be simple: keep going. Every new question will lead to another exploration, and within that curiosity lies the potential for creation.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

Collaboration has been central to developing my art as a liberatory practice. We often fall into the trap of hyper-individualism, practicing a “I-must-do-this-all-by-myself” mentality. If we want to live in a world where we feel loved and supported, liberation has to be a collective effort. We have to do away with the idea that we can hold all things at once. Imagine a world where we can dream together and co-create a future that holds us in our humanity. This requires an ecosystem of thinkers, doers, experimentalists, and creatives.

This is why I’ve been more intentional about collaborating with other artists. I’m particularly interested in working with writers, musicians, healers and activists—anyone who uses their art as a tool for collective liberation. I’m excited to explore ways we can expand this movement and keep it accessible to everyone who wants to join.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: wanderlust_bones
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/flor-khan