A NEW audio trail featuring the voices of people in recovery from substance use is set to offer a different perspective on Oldham’s people, places and landscape.
If You Could Speak to the World will take walkers on a self-guided journey from Oldham town centre into the woodlands of Northern Roots, using spoken poetry, brass music and sounds recorded across the landscape.
The permanent public artwork has been commissioned by visual arts organisation Portraits of Recovery as part of September’s Recoverist Month.
It will also mark the opening of Northern Roots’ new community hub and visitor destination on Saturday, September 19.
The trail was created by poet Phil Davenport, who worked with people with lived experience of substance use and recovery from Turning Point’s Rochdale and Oldham Active Recovery (ROAR) service.
Around 15 people, aged between their 20s and 70s, took part in the project, with support from Northern Roots Natural Health Service.
The group met outdoors at Northern Roots throughout spring and early summer, using the landscape as inspiration for poetry and sound recordings. They helped shape the route, identify stopping points and capture the sounds of the environment.
Davenport then mixed the recordings with fragments of brass compositions written by sound designer and composer Sophie Cooper and performed by Milnrow Band.
The finished trail features seven spoken works, with routes ranging from two miles to six miles.
Notable stopping points include Alexandra Park boating lake, the beehives at Brook Mills Gardens, the Tip Road path and Park Bridge.
‘A sound walk like no other’
Zac Blinston, a recovery community development worker from ROAR who has his own lived experience of recovery from substance use, was among those involved.
The professionally trained actor said: “I think this is a really important project for the town. Oldham has such a rich history and is a larger-than-life place, despite being one of the most deprived boroughs in the country. This audio trail is breaking down barriers and showing that poetry is for everyone – it’s only words after all!
“The trail is both a physical journey and a figurative one. I hope that people who follow it feel a sense of hope. We’re all on a journey – it’s just that some people’s journeys are harder than others.”
Davenport said: “This is a sound walk like no other. We aren’t delivering a nature trail or a local history, but something much more unusual. We will be guided by the voices of Oldham and Rochdale people in recovery: people who are intensely aware of the dark art of damage and the honesty needed to pull away from it.
“Their poems are the narrative for the walk, which takes us out of a busy, chaotic town centre, to the edge of where people are and then out beyond, into the woods and the wilds.
“Human separation from nature is disastrous for humanity and for the rest of the world. So why not walk in nature in the company of people who are experts in both damage and healing, looking for ways out of our usual selves? Beyond our familiars, into the new.”
Dominic Pillai, curator of social engagement at Portraits of Recovery, commented: “Phil did a fantastic job demonstrating that poetry takes many forms and can be accessible to everyone.
“Group members embraced the project with honesty, courage and imagination, drawing strength from experiences that are too often overlooked and misunderstood. The result is a powerful public artwork that invites audiences to experience both recovery and the landscape through the voices of those who know about life’s need for resilience, possibility and change.
“The voices of people with lived experience of recovery will now form part of the Northern Roots experience for years to come.”
The project was funded by Transport for Greater Manchester’s Wheels and Walks programme and forms part of Oldham’s Greater Manchester Town of Culture Rising Up programme.
Maps are available from Northern Roots’ new Welcome Building or online. A series of free guided walks will also take place during September and October to launch the trail.
To book a guided walk, visit the Eventbrite booking page.
Recoverist Month events are taking place across the North West throughout September.