The Recoverist Manifesto

The Recoverist Manifesto is a powerful collective statement that unites the voices of individuals in recovery from the UK, Italy, and Turkey. Crafted through a collaborative effort, it was facilitated and carefully curated by Dr Clive Parkinson, former Director of Arts for Health at the Manchester School of Art, in partnership with Portraits of Recovery. This manifesto emerged as a result of the Pan-European Life-Long Learning project from 2012 to 2014, titled “I AM: Art as an Agent for Change,” which was led by PORe.

At its core, the Recoverist Manifesto champions the direct voice of those in recovery, advocating for the transformative redefinition of addiction and recovery identities. It doesn’t view people as mere passive participants in recovery but instead empowers them as “Recoverists.” This manifesto delves into the aspirations, hopes, fears, desires, and dreams of those on the journey to recovery.

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A Recoverist Manifesto, Part One – A Short Film by Clive Parkinson

Between 2012 and 2014 people in recovery from substance addiction took part in a European project exploring how the arts and culture can support people in recovery to develop new life opportunities. This project was I AM: Art as an Agent for Change and 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.

The project supported exchange between three countries, the UK, Italy and Turkey, to explore self-portraiture enabling the forging of new and future Pan-European working relationships between artists/arts/cultural and addiction/recovery sectors, the social/clinical sciences/Universities; and recovering communities.

We want to tell a story, shine a light, blow away the myths and stand proud. We want to generate new possibilities for people in recovery by challenging and changing attitudes. The project brought together, artists, cultural and public organizations and people affected by addiction to exceptional quality contemporary art experiences.

The project enabled things far beyond its initial remit. It exposed a vein of activism often suppressed by a narrow understanding of addiction and its causes – and – a culture of blame and vilification.

From 2012 – 2014, people in all three countries were actively engaged in developing a manifesto that expresses the frustrations and passion of everyday life with parity. The idea of ‘recoverism’ and a Recoverist Manifesto stems from this project and reflects the voices of people from different cultures, but connected through a desire to address inequalities and who see addiction as a cultural and civil rights issue.

This short video represents an ‘incarnation’ of the first presentation of the aggregated words and thoughts of all the people involved. This work is being developed further with partners in the three countries and will be expanded further with people in Ireland, Lithuania and Spain this year.

A presentation of this work was made on 17th July in Manchester as part of a symposium held at MMU. This film contains YouTube fragments including interviews and documentary edits and with excerpts of films by:

Maya Deren, At Land (1944)
Fritz Lang, Metropolis (1927)
Ralph Steiner, Mechanical Principles (1930)
Music is by Lichens from the album Lítiõ Fólk (2012).
The track is Jökla Tímabil

http://artsforhealthmmu.blogspot.co.uk/

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