Keithy Antoine is the entrepreneur and artist making space for African and Caribbean artists in Montreal. Offering Afro-descent artists and entrepreneurs in the local area a chance to excel and gain more opportunities to thrive in their craft.
With a strong focus on elevating the Black community, Antoine is the founder and co-owner of Boutique Espace Urbain, a co-op space for Black artistry in Montreal.
She created the boutique with the knowledge that Black businesses within and beyond Montreal need more visibility, expertise and support to help them along. Espace Urbain has been showcasing Afro-Montreal creators since 2015 when the boutique first opened its doors to the community.
Expect to find clothes for men, women and children as well as hand-made jewelry pieces, products for skin and hair, fabrics, books, gift items, rarer goods, exclusives, limited editions and much more. The boutique sets out to be unique and dynamic in its offerings so to mimic the vast African and Caribbean inhabitants of Montreal.
The boutique serves to offer a space for ‘collective wealth’ for Afro-Caribbean artists in Montreal. So far it has provided this in abundance and has been recognized as a centralized space for budding African and Caribbean artists in Montreal.
Antoine is also the founder and director of the organization Union Urbain, a space partly responsible for the annual Afro Urbain festival which highlights the cultures and artistic contributions of African descent people.
The boutique also serves as a co-working space where entrepreneurs in the area can meet clients, network and even have meetings. In this sense, Antoine has brought the community together in more ways than she could imagine.
Furthering the community spirit that has helped maintain the boutique, on its website Espace Urbain claims to be “[d]riven by cooperative, eco-responsible, activist, progressive and family values.”
With Antoine’s dedication to African and Caribbean artists in Montreal and the mounting potential that lies within, we can expect the boutique to be a long-lasting representation of legacy and hope for Black businesses in the country.
