Learning from addiction: A life mission for Whanganui's Shannette Hirst

Shannette Hirst and James Allen, community addiction support workers, outside the Gonville community room. Photo / Supplied

If the experience of addiction teaches a person anything worth knowing, it is how to create something positive from a negative experience.

This is the life mission of Shannette Hirst, community support worker. Shannette is reaching out to the Whanganui community to attract art makers to participate in an event she believes could have a perspective altering impact.

With the help of national addiction recovery network the Anti-P Ministry, Shannette is hosting Whakapono-Believe - an art exhibition that brings together a collection of voices in various mediums to tell the story of addiction recovery.

"With the goal of contributing to ending stigma and discrimination, it is our hope this event will draw public attention to this contentious social issue and help educate our community, and across Aotearoa, about the reality of addiction recovery," she said.

"And I'm really keen to get as many Whanganui artists involved as possible."

Artists are invited to contribute one work each, communicating in their language something of their experience of addiction, and the subsequent journey back to the self that is recovery.

Shannette says the harm addiction causes is like a drop in a pool of water - the impact ripples outward, through a person's community. She hopes the event will have a similar impact, beginning with those who attend the exhibition and view the work.

The weekend opening event will be on Friday, September 26, and will be opened by a member of the addiction recovery lived experience community employing rituals of kaupapa Māori. The exhibition will be open to view for a week.

The event will be accompanied by an education drive organised by the Anti-P Ministry, including the distribution of information to spread the recovery message.

"This is not just another art exhibition," Shannette explained.

"In a community like Whanganui art is a great way to reach out to people but this event is really a vehicle to convey a much deeper message that we hope will have positive ripple effects throughout the community."

Substance abuse and addiction is not widely understood and is increasingly impacting communities across Aotearoa, while those affected are often marginalised due to limited education and prejudice.

Shannette and her colleagues hope this event will contribute to change by empowering people with a deeper understanding of and empathy for the experience of people with addiction.

"Prejudice enables us to reduce people with derogatory labels that exclude, discriminate and dehumanise in ways that only harm individuals, and increase society's burden."

Educating her community about the reality of addiction has become her purpose in life. She hopes this event can demonstrate what the beginning of a recovery journey can look like - and if possible even help direct people along the first few steps of that path.

"By bringing together artists with the lived experience of this diverse and widespread illness, we are hoping to weave together a fabric of threads that give insight into the invisible darkness addiction can create in a person's life; and the beauty that the recovery journey back to the self can be."

Artists who cannot attend in person are invited to send their work to be exhibited, and those who cannot do that are invited to contribute photographs or video recordings to be viewed online, and projected on screen at the exhibition.

If you're interested in participating please look up Shannette on Facebook to find out more: https://www.facebook.com/shannette.hirst.3

Every Saturday Shannette Hirst and James Allen, community addiction support workers, can be found outside the Gonville community room or in the carpark - providing support and information between 10am and 2pm during appropriate lockdown levels.