Vulnerable Becomings

This chapter explores how addiction recovery arts practices, from small-scale theater projects to large cultural initiatives, reshape understandings of addiction recovery through what I term “vulnerable worldbuilding.” Focusing on case studies such as The Washing Up project by small performance adventures and the advocacy work of Portraits of Recovery (PORe), I examine how creative practices create spaces where vulnerability becomes a generative and relational force. Building on Sultan and Duff’s (2022) conceptualization of vulnerability in recovery and Theodoropoulou’s (2022) “recovery assemblage” framework, I argue that recovery is not solely an individual process but emerges from interconnections between people, communities, and creative practices. Recovery arts foreground visibility, empathy, and relationality, challenging dominant, individualistic narratives of addiction and recovery, while fostering social inclusion and authentic interpersonal bonds. By combining relational vulnerability with socially engaged performance, these practices operate at both personal and collective levels, creating new cultural imaginaries. Ultimately, this chapter foregrounds the potential of recovery arts to reframe how vulnerability and addiction recovery are experienced, understood, and represented.