An exhibition made by and for women recovering from addiction has headed from Sheffield to the United Nations.
The exhibition, which took place at Project6 in Sheffield city centre last Friday, is a part of a PhotoVoice research project led by PhD student Mulka Nisic.
It will now be presented at the UN’s Commission for Narcotic Drugs in Vienna.
Ms Nisic aims to use artistic tools to research otherwise hidden and marginalised populations in drug policies.
She said: “This project is a way of showing how inspiring this process can be. It’s not just about taking the data from the women for research purposes, it’s about how women have grown from this project and can feel empowered and unified through community.”
The exhibition featured photos taken by women in the Sheffield Recovery Community group at significant moments in their recovery journey, and the authors talked about the inspiration behind the images.
One of the women presenting, Ruth, talked about her part of the exhibit, “The Brush” – featuring a new and old brush side by side. The old brush used to be her husband’s before he passed away, and she couldn’t bring herself to use it at first.
Ruth said: “At the start of my recovery, I was terrified. One day I made a huge effort to sweep the kitchen floor. I realised I needed a new brush, a new tool to make the task easier, one that was newer, cleaner, stronger, more colourful and that would make life easier. My journey had begun.”
City councillor Tracey Ford, who is chair of the Sheffield Recovery Forum, was one of the people leading the exhibition alongside Ms Nisic.
As well as leading the event, Coun Ford also read out a poem that she wrote called ‘Woman – There is more to you than you think’.
Coun Ford has been writing for the past five years, and publishes her own poetry and writing about her own experiences with addiction on her blog called #HaveAWordWithYourself.
She said that while the Recovery Forum was only a small part of her job, it was the part that kept her ‘sane’.
She added: “It’s inspirational and it gives me hope. I believe we just have to keep believing in people.”
Both Coun Ford and Ms Nisic will be heading to Vienna, Austria, to present the exhibition at the 67th session of the UN’s Commission for Narcotic Drugs in front of 3,000 policy makers and government officials.
Ms Nisic said: “Our first aim is to get the voices heard, to make policy makers think of gender-sensitive approaches to treatment, recovery, and reintegration.
“Most of the decision making is done by middle aged, white men, based on research done on middle aged, white men, so bringing voices of women into policy and research and showcasing this using photos really is a changemaker.”
The talk is called Unveiling Gender Dynamics: Exploring Drug Dependence, Recovery and Policy Matters in the Global Conversation around Women and will be presented at the UN on 18 March.
