“Thank you for this important and beautiful and moving exhibition.”
“Captures both the creativeness and catastrophe of ‘recovery’. Very open and heartfelt, a reminder that better things can and will come.”
“Thoughtful and life affirming.”
From our visitors
Let Annie, our Recoverist Curator, guide you through Recoverist Curators: Re-imagining the World We Live In.
Experience the exhibition through her eyes, as she brings her lived experience of recovery directly to the exhibition floor. For Annie, recovery is a creative and activist practice, and her curation is driven by a profound belief in art’s power to re-imagine our world and heal our communities.
She chose Celebration of the Night by Pearl Alcock, a Jamaican-born Black British artist, businesswoman, and community builder who ran a legendary secret queer club in Brixton for much of the 1970s and ’80s.
Annie chose this piece for it’s raw and resonant energy, saying:
“We can all be addicted to all sorts of things, not necessarily drugs or alcohol. A need for something that fulfils a dopamine high: relationships, chocolate, your mobile. This picture for me captures that restless energy with its spikey, moving shapes of colour in the darkness. They reflect the inner tension, the excitement of the chase to get your hit… a high that constantly needs replenishing.”
Driven by lived experience, the Recoverist Curators project is an activist-based process, developing inclusive new ways of working with people and communities in recovery. This exhibition has forged new knowledge and increased cultural confidence for meaningful creative engagement.
See the show through Annie’s eyes.
An event for Portraits of Recovery’s DRY26, a brand-new arts programme that enriches the Dry January experience through the power of arts and culture.