A curious artwork is coming to Salford Museum & Art Gallery this weekend (19-20 September).
There is an interesting catch, as the artwork will only be complete once the visitors walk across the temporary path- constructed by dozens of floristry foam.
The exhibition has been named, ‘Put your Foot Down II’ and Salford-based artist, Masie Pritchard is behind it.
Put Your Foot Down II builds on an earlier artwork first showcased by Pritchard at The Manchester Contemporary art exhibition and was commissioned by Portraits of Recovery for this September’s Recoverist Month.
A series of workshops in the run up to the weekend-long experience are inviting Salford people in recovery to explore their city through walking, collecting and noticing. They used found and everyday materials to make tools, experiment with mark-making, create impressions in clay and floral foam, and reflect together on the experiences and ideas that emerged.
At the Salford Museum & Art Gallery event called Walk in My Shoes, visitors will encounter an archive of this process, bringing together tools, materials, experiments, photographs, traces and words from across the project. Rather than presenting a collection of finished artworks, the display will show how the project developed and how one activity, conversation or experiment led into another.
Pritchard is encouraging visitors to walk across the path, this weekend. As more people get involved, the imprints left behind will begin to overlap and transform the artwork through collective movement.
The installation forms part of Recoverist Month programme of exhibitions, performances and creative events. Led by arts organisation Portraits of Recovery, the annual event places the arts at the centre of conversations about substance use and recovery every September.
The artwork asks visitors to consider recovery as a shared act of moving forward- a journey shaped by connection, change and detours along the way.
Mark Prest, Founder Director of Portraits Of Recovery, said: “Recovery is often imagined as something straightforward, a journey from one place to another. Walk in My Shoes offers a different perspective: a process shaped by detours and mutual support.
“As visitors move across the installation, they leave traces of their presence alongside others. Individual journeys become part of something larger. The work proposes portraiture as something collective; an accumulation of shared experiences, movements and connections.”
The event is a Portraits Of Recovery commission developed and delivered in partnership with Salford Museum & Art Gallery and Paradise Works, funded by Achieve Recovery Asset Fund.
Pritchard, who is based at Paradise Works Artists’ studio, said: “Walk in My Shoes has developed quite organically through walking, collecting, making and spending time together. We haven’t been working towards one fixed outcome; each session has led into the next, bringing up different conversations, materials and ways of thinking about recovery.
“A lot of the project has been about simple acts of walking, noticing and making with what’s around us. I hope people come away feeling that creativity can be part of everyday life and doesn’t require specialist skills or previous experience.”
