The Good Shepherd has worked with people in recovery and put on an art exhibition at Newhampton Arts Centre.

A thought provoking art exhibition is on at the Newhampton Arts Centre and includes work by people in recovery.

Transcript

00:00So we're here at Newhampton Arts Centre. I'm here with Kate Penman. That's a great surname.

00:06Fantastic exhibition on at the minute, Kate. It's on until, when's it come down?

00:11So it's coming down Thursday the 26th of September and we're moving it to Wolverhampton 01902,

00:18the new gallery in the city centre. I didn't know about that. Where's that then?

00:22So it's just by the man on the horse, 01902 and urban rooms. Okay well that's news to me,

00:27great stuff. And what is the exhibition all about then? What's kind of the ethos behind it?

00:33So the exhibition is called Recovery is for Everyone and it's looking at people in recovery

00:37from addiction, mental health issues and the trauma of homelessness. So we partnered with

00:43Service User Involvement Team, Recovery Near You, University of Wolverhampton.

00:48We had funding from the Arts Council and we ran professional workshops since January,

00:55culminating in this exhibition. Awesome and it's all linked to the Good Shepherd that everyone

01:00involved should know about if they don't. Everybody should, yeah. So we've been in the city for 52 years,

01:05the Good Shepherd. What's your role at the Good Shepherd then? So I work on the creative engagement

01:10and community engagement, that's my job. And do you find art, you know, with the kind of

01:16people you've got coming through, their art can just be used as a useful therapy tool, is that

01:20what it's about? It's been massively so and I think like one of the lads was talking about the pottery

01:26sessions and just how he could lose himself in them. Yeah. And they've really, really worked hard

01:32in all the workshops. The quality of the work that's come out, self-portraits are beautiful. So

01:37I think it's been very therapeutic but also what's happened is the group is cemented to some

01:43real friendships and some genuine camaraderie because in isolation, addiction, mental health,

01:49homelessness, it's too much. But together, you need to be in recovery together and supporting

01:55each other. Any particular favourite pieces in the exhibition? Do you know, I love the children's

02:01artwork so we run family workshops with families impacted by addiction. Walk us through then Kate,

02:06where's the children's? So we've got some children, oh actually straight away we've got

02:10Namish did the cave. Yeah. So we had some, yeah, stalactites and stalagmites. Yeah. And then we had

02:20these two here were from the abstract art sessions. Yeah. So this was Molly and Michelle

02:26that worked on this. 12, Molly 12 years old? Yeah, so she was doing the background and then Michelle

02:31helped with the bird and then Fabe Harvey did that. And then we've got these wonderful,

02:40yeah, this was from a student that's just graduated. Yeah. You just graduated from the

02:45University of Wolverhampton in illustration. No way. So, and they're really powerful pieces. Yeah.

02:52You've even got, we've got, what's going on here? We've got to go on. This is just stupendous isn't

02:58it? So there's stencils around. So the artist Jane Plowright came in and ran a workshop for five

03:04weeks. Yeah. With our students and we went into West Park, took photographs and then we worked

03:10on stencils. I love it. So everyone learned how to do stencil art and the idea is that nature's

03:18not in conflict with each other, like nature needs to be complimentary and recovery doesn't

03:23happen in isolation. Yeah. So it's a community thing. So there's a wonderful statement by the

03:31artist just saying that it is in community, like nature reflects recovery. So this is,

03:37has been a massive labour of love and they've worked really hard on it. It's brilliant.