The Repair Works

Participation recruitment for The Repair Works is now open – register your free place here. 

The Repair Works invites participants to explore the relationships that exist between Kintsugi, recovery from substance use and artistic acts of self-repair, and to creatively apply these ideas to individual journeys of recovery.  

This Autumn, The Repair Works will support people in recovery, their family, friends, and significant others to explore creative acts of renewal and self-repair. Delivered through a programme of learning, designed to help improve life structure and enhance practical skills for improved wellbeing. We are seeking participants from Salford, Bolton, and Trafford to get involved with the project, with workshops taking place at Paradise Works and other locations on dates to be confirmed.  

“Kintsugi (gold joining), or kintsukurai (gold repair) is a Japanese repair technique that takes ceramic destruction and makes a broken object into a new entity. It leaves clear, bold, visible lines… and gold to mark the scars, it never hides the story of the object’s damage.”  
(Bonnie Kemske, ‘Kintsugi the Poetic Mend’, Bloomsbury Herbert Press, 2021. Chapter 1, Cracks Made Whole in a Golden Repair, pg12) 

As well as recovery processes, the project will directly address and dispel associated stigma, by expanding the cultural life of Salford, Trafford, and Bolton communities via public facing introductions to recovery and recovery communities, and the arts, and culture. 

Working as a collective, participation will support people’s social reintegration, whilst the project’s facilitator will work with individuals to create Leaning Plans, supporting them to make positive choices for realistic, but ambitious personal goal setting. 

The Repair Works is specifically interested in the relationship between the two philosophies of Kintsugi and Recovery and what each can learn from the other for acts of repair and transformation. Can people previously viewed as broken and unfit for purpose, be seen as renewed, transformed and valuable assets to society? We wish to challenge prevalent perceptions of the recovery community by metaphorically and physically exploring these concepts through object making and repair. 

How to get involved

Participation is open to people who live in Salford, Trafford, and Bolton, and is for: those in substance use recovery, their family, friends, and significant others. We recognise that addiction impacts all, and everyone is entitled to their own recovery. 

To sign up, book a place via Eventbrite.

If you know of anyone who may be interested in registering for the project, please share this page and/or contact Claire: claire.armitage@portraitsofrecovery.org.uk.

Confirmed project start and dates of workshop will be available in the coming weeks. Please note that the project will be a commitment of 1-2 days per week, for around 8 weeks.

About you and eligibility: 

• You must be over 18 years old, creative or have an interest in the arts 
• You are in abstinence-based recovery with a minimum of 3 months clean time, or be on a medically assisted or maintenance-based programme 
• Or, be a friend, family member or significant other of someone in recovery 

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Delivered by Portraits of Recovery in partnership with Paradise Works, creatively produced by Jenny Walker and kindly funded by Achieve Recovery Asset Fund.