A September-long contemporary arts programme at venues across Greater Manchester and Liverpool
Back for its fourth instalment in September 2026, Recoverist Month is the UK’s only annual contemporary arts programme that centres people in recovery from substance use.
From artists’ film screenings and gallery performances to audio walking trails and a creative, communal gathering at a Michelin-starred restaurant, this year’s events series is nearly upon us.
Coinciding with International Recovery Month, every event is designed to challenge public perceptions of addiction and to empower individuals in recovery to reconsider their own journeys. Partners and venues for 2026 include Northern Roots, Salford Museum & Art Gallery, Stockport Plaza, The Whitworth, SODA, HOME Arches and Michelin Green Star restaurant, Where The Light Gets In
Recoverist is a portmanteau word, blending recovery and cultural activist.
Portraits of Recovery first launched Recoverist Month in 2023 to underline and showcase the rich contributions communities in recovery make to the UK’s arts and cultural landscape.
Mark Prest, founding director, Portraits of Recovery says: “The arts and culture are a power for positive social change and for creatively reframing identities around substance use and recovery. Recoverism is a culturally focused ideology which can help support society to better look at itself, to shift radically how we all work, think, live, love, connect and creatively express ourselves.”
From exploring horror as a creative language for recovery to “queering” the Recoverist Manifesto, Recoverist Month 2026 highlights include:
A WALKING TRAIL WITH A POETIC SOUNDTRACK
Spanning 160 acres of woodland, wetland, moorland and meadow, Northern Roots in Oldham is the UK’s largest urban farm and eco-park.
For Recoverist Month, poet Phillip Davenport has been working with members of the recovery community from Turning Point Oldham and Rochdale to co-create a permanent audio walking trail called If You Could Speak to the World.
The soundtrack will guide visitors through the eco-park and is intended to highlight walking as a supportive practice for those in recovery.
WALK IN MY SHOES PERFORMANCE INSTALLATION
Artist Maisie Pritchard has co-created an exhibition with people in recovery called Walk in My Shoes: A Journey of Collective Recovery.
The project invites family and friends to metaphorically “walk in the shoes” of their loved ones, underlining that recovery is not just an individual pursuit but a collective, community-centred activity.
At the heart of the show is an inviting centre piece that visitors can literally walk all over, called Put Your Foot Down.
The free exhibition, which paints the journey of recovery as a non-linear process, is at Salford Museum & Art Gallery from 19-20 September 2026.
RECOVERIST MONTH FOR CINEPHILES
Counter Narratives, a screening of three handpicked artist films with a recovery theme, will be followed by a panel discussion exploring the intersection between the moving image, mental health and recovery. (Stockport Plaza, 29 September 2026 6pm-8pm)
There Is No One What Will Take Care of You is a three-channel video installation by Dina Fiasconaro from the USA. Making its UK debut, it explores the relationship between a father, daughter, and friend whose lives are impacted by substance use.
Small Hours is a hand-painted short animation from BAFTA-shortlisted Oscar Wyndham Lewis, which explores the grip of substance use and the fragile hope of human connection. It is narrated by actor Robert Bathurst (Downton Abbey, Cold Feet, Toast of London).
And finally, Milk is Miranda Stern’s BAFTA-nominated short documentary exploring maternal loss and heroin use.
In a separate Recoverist Month event, called Recoverist House of Horrors: Making Friends with Your Monsters, Alex Herod will share her research on how the horror genre possesses a unique therapeutic potential to support recovery from addiction and trauma.
THE THINGS WE DREAMED OF: QUEERING THE RECOVERIST MANIFESTO
Things We Dreamed Of (10 September, The Whitworth) invites audiences to a performance unfolding in real time, where queer recovery becomes an act of imagination, resistance and collective future-making. It is co-produced and performed by people in recovery alongside lead artists Jez Dolan and Alana Lake.
Drawing on Jack Halberstam’s The Queer Art of Failure, the project treats failure as a radical strategy: a way of loosening the polished surfaces of “success” to reveal the raw, necessary work of trying, faltering and then again.
BREAKING BREAD AT WHERE THE LIGHT GETS IN
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. (27 September 2026)
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.
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. The dining table becomes part studio, part meeting place, and part stage for shared curiosity.
