Artist lights up bus station
A BOLD neon artwork has gone on display at Rochdale bus station.
The piece, entitled Out of the place and at the margins: A hundred songs for Kneeze and Vijay, is on display on an overhead walkway in the station.
It was created by internationally-acclaimed artist Sutapa Biswas, who says it explores the ‘taboo’ subject of drug abuse in Asian communities.
Based on a poem written by Biswas celebrating diversity, the installation reads “listen to my pulse. And walk tall I, free like river water let me be”.
The artist spent several months working with a number of men from Rochdale and says the piece is also a tribute to two mothers whose support was central to helping their sons overcome addiction.
Biswass, a senior lecturer at the Manchester School of Art, who has work in the Tate’s permanent collection, said: “I hope this work acts as a kind of incantation for the viewer with the intention to liberate the spirit and to amplify the voices of the often unheard.
“I don’t know if I have any real answers perhaps just even more questions.”
Mark Prest, director of the Oldham-based visual arts organisation Portraits of Recovery, who commissioned the work, said: “Picture an addict, what do you see? Someone white, probably working class and straight – a stereotype straight out of Trainspotting.
“Recovery for me is about freedom. But where is the freedom when treatment services are not ‘culturally’ representative and fail to meet the needs of diverse people and their communities?
“Tailored, more inclusive approaches to recovery are critical and a civil and human right. Otherwise this can lead to a sense of alienation from the very system that is supposed to be supporting them.
“A project aim was to increase visibility and highlight the need for better tailored and diverse approaches to recovery. Also to challenge and change often stigmatised attitudes to substance use and those suffering from it.”
A companion piece is also on display at Touchstones until December 16.