Artists helping recovering drug addicts

MANCHESTER School of Art has played host to an artists’ group with a difference – all the participants were adults in active recovery from substance misuse.

Spearheaded by Arts for Health, which is part of Manchester Metropolitan University, I AM: Memoirs of Addiction Recovery featured workshops led by two international artists. Selda Asal and Cristina Nunez.

Director of Arts for Health, Clive Parkinson, said: “20 people from Manchester and Liverpool took part in four-day workshops that used film, photography and animation to explore participant’s self-representation.

“The artwork production was a collaborative journey undertaken by the artists with participants. This was a brilliant opportunity to work with international artists from such diverse backgrounds.”

European project

Spanish artist Cristina Nuñez has been taking self-portraits since 1988 as self-therapy; her Someone to Love project was shown at Mois de la Photo-Montreal in 2011.

She guided the participants in the creation of collaborative self-portraits, and then helped them create their own through translating their emotional pain into art.

Turkish, film and sound installation artist Selda Asal supported participants to vocalise who they are, what they think and what their future hopes and dreams are, using a variety of techniques including film, lyric writing, animation and editing.

I AM is a 2 year European project led byPortraits of Recovery, an Oldham based, visual arts charity, and developed in partnership with Arts for Health, at Manchester Metropolitan University. It’s all about looking at how the arts and culture can support people in recovery from substance misuse to develop new life-opportunities.

“Process of transformation”

Project manager, Mark Prest, from Portraits of Recovery, said: “Recovery is a process of transformation, a passage that reconfigures a person’s identity. The resulting artworks will offer a powerful exhibition of participants’ voices as presented through their stories as well as their portraits beyond clichéd representations.”

I AM was funded under the European Union’s Life Long Learning Programme, Grundtvig, which supports, individuals and organisations involved in non-vocational adult education to participate in European training activities and projects.