In partnership with Manchester Museum
Led by artist Divine Southgate-Smith
African Objects: Psychoactives, Spirituality an Mental Health is an ongoing creative health project exploring the intersections between African heritage, recovery, spirituality, and mental health. Delivered by Portraits of Recovery in partnership with Manchester Museum, the project brings together members of Black and African-Caribbean communities with lived experience of recovery from substance use and/or mental health challenges.
Living in a complex world – our place within it can often feel overwhelming. A need for spiritual nourishment, be that the universe, mother nature, or religion, feels ever more pressing. An absence of personal spirituality can, for some, lead to mental health or substance use issues.
Culturally, the use of plant-based Psychoactives for ancestor worship, and religious or spiritual purposes within the African diaspora is long known. Contemporary thinking, now controversially looks towards Psychoactives for improving our health and wellbeing.
The project invites participants to engage with objects from Manchester Museum’s Living Cultures collection—uncovering hidden histories, examining complex legacies, and sparking new conversations around healing, identity, and spirituality. Through storytelling, discussion, and creative practice, participants create personal and collective responses that reframe the cultural significance of these objects in a contemporary context.
Facilitated by transdisciplinary artist Divine Southgate-Smith, the project sits at the heart of our commitment to community-led creative health. It reflects our belief in the power of cultural heritage and artistic expression as tools for connection, transformation, and recovery.
This multi-phase project began with an object-handling session as part of Recoverist Month in 2024 and continues with a six-week programme of workshops in 2025, culminating in an intervention at Manchester Museum, as part of Recoverist Month in September 2025.
About the artist
Divine Southgate-Smith (b. 1995, Lome, Togo) is a British trans-disciplinary artist. Her work often references and questions articulations of black, queer, and female experience. Her approach to artmaking is medium non-specific, allowing her to explore complex narratives through various mediums and disciplines.
About our partners
MANCHESTER MUSEUM
Manchester Museum displays work of archaeology, anthropology and natural history in a way that attempts to confront the past with honesty and transparency, putting communities at the heart of what they do.
MYRIAD
MYRIAD aims to support the delivery of culturally competent, community-based mental health and wellbeing support with and for global majority communities. This project is part of Test & Learn at MYRIAD; within the Greater Manchester Creative Health Place Partnership.
Greater Manchester’s Creative Health Place Partnership is part of Live Well; GM’s movement for community-led health and well-being and will focus on pioneering new ways of supporting residents to live as well as they can, by creating new, community-led approaches with culture and creativity at their heart.
MYRIAD is supported by NHS GM Integrated Care and Baring Foundation. The GM Creative Health Place Partnership is further supported by Arts Council England.
