An invitation to eat, make, listen and dream…
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Set inside the loft-style surroundings of Where the Light Gets In, Stockport’s Michelin Green Star restaurant, Breaking Bread is a playful communal gathering led by Portraits of Recovery associate artist Joe Hartley. Over food and shared art making, it brings together Recoverists, artists, curators, health practitioners, friends and collaborators to, talk, connect and exchange through creative forms of play.
The dining table becomes part studio, part meeting place and part stage for shared curiosity. Across a three-course happening, guests will be invited into a series of collective moments using different materials and processes, each drawing on the ingredients, textures, and grains of a seeded loaf.
At the table, listening becomes part of the artwork. Guests will be invited to bring their stories, questions and experiences into the room – reflecting on what Portraits of Recovery’s work has opened-up, what was or yet to be revealed, and what could be imagined and made together.
Across the afternoon, Joe will set his Afghan box camera, the “Marvelous Bellow-less Instant-ish Camera” – into motion, making black-and-white, hand-developed portraits as the gathering unfolds. Guests in small groups will be drawn by shared discoveries, affinities or accidents of conversation. Together, the images will map the room’s emerging connections: glances, exchanges and unexpected common ground that turn individual presence into collective experience.
As one of humanity’s oldest gestures, Breaking Bread becomes a metaphor for what might bind us together: generosity, exchange, and commonality.
Breaking Bread is a Portraits of Recovery commission, with very generous support from Where the Light Gets In, Stockport.
Recoverist Month, through exhibitions, performances and creative events, places the arts at the centre of conversations on substance use and recovery. Held every September to mark International Recovery Month, this annual programme brings artists, communities and audiences together across venues around the UK, making a vibrant contribution to the contemporary cultural landscape.
About the artist
Joe Hartley is a Manchester-based designer and maker. He co-founded Yellowhammer Studio in Stockport and Altogether Otherwise in Manchester, working across both sites. His practice focuses on evolving spaces, collaborative processes and ongoing exploration of materials. Hartley understands creative experience as inseparable from human experience: a way of opening conversation, making room for belonging and discovering what can be created together.
He studied at Manchester School of Art and, since graduating in 2012, has continued to work collaboratively with organisations including British Ceramics Biennial, Castlefield Gallery, Portraits of Recovery and Grizedale Arts.
