Community Art Project, Exhibition and Catalogue
Empowering Recovery Through Art
To the Sun, Moon & Stars was a participatory art project exploring recovery, creativity and personal transformation. The project culminated in a public exhibition at Gallery Oldham (2024) and a catalogue documenting the artworks and experiences created through the workshops.
Download the free project catalogue
The Project
To the Sun, Moon & Stars began as a series of art-based workshops for people in recovery from addiction in Oldham. The programme was managed by Portraits of Recovery (PORe) and led by artist Lois Blackburn.
Participants were invited to explore their personal journeys of recovery through making art in a supportive and collaborative environment. The project was inspired by the ancient tradition of amulets and talismans — objects created to offer protection, hope and strength.
Each workshop explored a different symbolic theme, including the eye, the heart and words of wisdom. Working with a range of tactile materials and processes — including metal, fabric, stitch and wire — participants created a collection of unique, handmade artworks. These objects symbolically reflect lived experience, resilience and the ongoing process of recovery.
Workshops and Creative Process
The workshops combined hands-on making with conversation and reflection. By working with materials and symbolic forms, participants were able to explore ideas about protection, strength, identity and transformation.
This creative process allowed people to express experiences that are often difficult to put into words. The resulting artworks became personal talismans — objects carrying meaning, memory and hope.
Art, Conversation and Collective Activism
Alongside the making, the workshops created space for reflection, conversation and shared understanding. Creating together became a form of collective activism, helping to generate new conversations about recovery and challenge stigma.
The project framed recovery as something visible, realistic and attainable, celebrating the creativity and strength within Oldham’s community of people in recovery.
Voices from the Workshops
“In our workshop conversation turned to how hands are used for social connection, as a tool for recovery, sensuality, passion, prayer, protection, stress, signalling, a stop sign, of boundaries. We also reflected on how they can be destructive, violent tools. We talked of communicating with our hands, of healing, of rituals in recovery, of feeling, touching and loving. Of holding hands.”
— Anonymous workshop participant
Exhibition at Gallery Oldham
The project culminated in a public exhibition at Gallery Oldham, where the artworks created during the workshops were displayed together for the first time.
The exhibition brought the voices and creativity of Oldham’s recovery community into a major cultural venue. Visitors were invited to engage with personal stories of recovery, resilience and transformation through the symbolic artworks created by participants.
Displayed collectively, the artworks formed a powerful visual statement about the role of creativity, connection and shared experience in recovery.
Project Catalogue
A fully illustrated catalogue was produced to document the project and the artworks created. The publication includes images of the work alongside reflections on the workshops and the creative process. Scroll the catalogue here, or press download.
Project Partners
Portraits of Recovery (PORe)
Gallery Oldham
Lois Blackburn 