In March, we opened the doors of Victoria Park to welcome Portsmouth into the Art of Recovery exhibition a day that had been months in the making.

A powerful celebration of creativity, courage and community, bringing together people with lived experience of addiction and substance misuse, the families and workers who support them, all while thanking the services walking alongside them every day.

Curated by Creatful’s founding director, Nancy, in collaboration with Project W and women across our recovery groups, the exhibition showcased artwork created over many months of gentle, trauma‑informed creative health workshops. The displays reflected the honesty, humour, grief, hope and resilience that sit at the heart of recovery.

Visitors explored a range of group‑made pieces, including self‑portrait work, skyline printing, White Ribbon Day displays, poetry, and a moving collection of Words of Recovery. Each piece held a story of someone rebuilding, reconnecting, or rediscovering themselves through creativity.

One of the standout features was the Hearts of Recovery installation. Over recent months, we invited our Creatful groups, Project W, Ambition Portsmouth, Society of St James, BMore Portsmouth and several other local recovery groups to create hundreds of small heart‑shaped artworks. Each heart represented solidarity for those facing addiction, alcohol misuse and recovery. Together, they formed a striking visual reminder of how many people in our city are connected by shared experience and collective hope.

We were also honoured to display the delicate paper butterflies created with artist Roo Abrook as part of the Great Expectations exhibition. These butterflies were made by people across recovery groups as they explored the theme of rejection, transforming difficult emotions into something beautiful, fragile and full of meaning.

The day also featured heartfelt speeches from BMore, Project W, and Creatful, including a powerful contribution from attendee George Brewster, whose words captured the raw reality of recovery and the importance of community spaces like ours.

The day was a reminder that recovery is not a straight line, but a journey made stronger through creativity, connection and compassion.

And as the sun set over Victoria Park, it was clear that this exhibition had done exactly what it set out to do: honour the courage of those in recovery and celebrate the community that holds them