RECOVERY
DOWN TO A FINE ART
B ack for its fourth instalment, Recoverist Month puts people in recovery at the heart of an ambitious September-wide programme of contemporary arts. Coinciding with International Recovery Month, this year’ s offering features everything from film screenings and gallery performances to poetic walking trails and workshops. Every event is designed to challenge public perceptions of addiction and empower people in recovery to reframe how they’ re represented and understood.
The annual event is led and delivered by Portraits of Recovery( PORe), the UK’ s only visual arts charity that commissions new work exploring recovery and initiates creative opportunities for the recovery communities. With events based across Greater Manchester and Liverpool, PORe plans to widen the scope even further in future years and become an annual focal point for arts and culture organisations.
Recoverist is a portmanteau word, blending‘ recovery’ and‘ activist’.‘ The arts are a powerful tool for positive social change and reframing identities around substance use,’ says PORe’ s founding director, Mark Prest.
Now in its fourth year, September’ s Recoverist Month will be the biggest yet, says Sara Teiger – showcasing an eclectic and powerful selection of recovery-based art projects across Manchester and Liverpool
‘ Recoverism is an ideology which can help support society to better look at itself, to shift radically how we all work, think, live, love, connect and creatively express ourselves.’
So here’ s a quick roundup of this year’ s highlights:
WALKING TRAIL WITH A RECOVERY SOUNDTRACK
Spanning 160 acres of woodland, wetland, moorland and meadow, Northern Roots in Oldham is the UK’ s largest urban farm and ecopark. For Recoverist Month, poet Phil Davenport has been working with members of the recovery community from Turning Point Oldham and Rochdale to cocreate a permanent walking trail called If You Could Speak to the World. With a poetrybased soundtrack sharing lived experience accompanying visitors on a guided walk through the eco-park, it’ s intended to highlight walking in nature as a practice that supports wellbeing.
WALK IN MY SHOES LIVE ART PERFORMANCE
Artist Maisie Pritchard has been working with people in recovery to co-create a new performance-based event called Walk in My Shoes: A Journey of Collective Recovery. The project invites family and friends to metaphorically‘ walk in the shoes’ of their loved ones, underlining the need for understanding – and that recovery is not just an individual pursuit but a collective, community-centred process. At the heart of the project is a live art event that will invite gallery visitors to create a new art piece called Put Your Foot Down by literally walking all over it. The free event, which illustrates the journey of recovery as a nonlinear transformative process, is at Salford Art Gallery & Museum from 19-20 September.
RECOVERIST MONTH FOR CINEPHILES
A special screening of three artist films at Stockport Plaza on 26 September will be followed by a panel discussion exploring the intersectionality of substance use, recovery, mental health and the moving image. Small Hours is a hand-painted short animation from BAFTAshortlisted Oscar Wyndham Lewis, which explores the grip of substance use and the fragile hope of human connection. There Is No One What Will Take Care of You is a three-channel video installation by Dina Fiasconaro which explores the relationship between a father, daughter and friend whose
Pictures – Recoverist Month artists 2025. Left – Dominic Bilton, Jez Dolan, David Hoyle and friends. Right – Harold Offeh.
lives are impacted by substance use. And finally, Milk is Miranda Stern’ s BAFTA-nominated short documentary exploring maternal loss and heroin use.
Another Recoverist Month event, called Recoverist House of Horrors: Making Friends with Your Monsters, will see Alex Herod share her research on how the horror genre has a unique therapeutic potential to understand trauma and support recovery.
LGBT + WORKSHOPS
On Saturdays between July and September, LGBT + people in recovery are invited to a series of free artist-led workshops at The Whitworth gallery. The Things We Dreamed Of … will draw on the Recoverist Manifesto to explore queer healing, creativity and collective imagination.
Sara Teiger works with PORe on their public relations
Full details of the programme can be found at portraitsofrecovery. org and on PORe’ s socials.
32 • DRINK AND DRUGS NEWS • JULY / AUGUST 2026 WWW. DRINKANDDRUGSNEWS. COM