Recoverist = recovery + activist.
Recoverist Curators is part of Chaordic, a three-year commissioning strand of work in partnership with the Whitworth, Manchester Art Gallery, and the Castlefield Gallery. See here for more details.
Led by Portraits of Recovery, Recoverist Curators works with people in recovery from substance. Through a series of artist-led workshops, our curators have explored and reinterpreted the Whitworth’s art collection, with Recoverist Curators opening in July 2025. This exhibition aims to better understand the hopes, fears, desires and dreams of Greater Manchester’s recovery community.
Recoverist Curators is a participatory form of practice that builds on and develops a Recoverist glossary of language that better represents our recovery communities, within the Whitworth and the Whitworth’s collection. This constituent-led project will build on the learning the Whitworth has developed from other constituent-based exhibitions, such as Still Parents and (Un)Defining Queer to deliver a programme that has an equitable understanding of power-sharing, curation, engagement and learning.
Over 6 months, we will invite practitioners who identify as being in recovery, to deliver sessions with our Recoverists that revolve around the gallery’s art collection. These sessions will facilitate conversations within a safe space for developing the Recoverist glossary, which will form the basis for a major public exhibition.
Join us to explore the Whitworth’s collection through a Recoverist lens, positioning art as a tool that humanises the recovery experience, and better informs society about this community’s lived experience:
Recoverist Curators opens at the Whitworth 25 July 2025.
Funded with support from:
