New outdoor exhibit on Church Street celebrates National Recovery Month

A new, interactive exhibit, Portraits of Recovery: Voices of Addiction will debut on Monday in Burlington City Art’s Firehouse Gallery’s alley way. The exhibit’s installation will begin at 9 a.m. and will be ready for public walk through by 12 pm.
Portraits of Recovery: Voices of Addiction features large format portraits of mothers, daughters, sons, brothers, fathers and others touched by addiction living in the Franklin County area. In different stages of recovery, each portrait gives the viewer the opportunity to access recorded audio stories (via cell phone) from the perspectives of addicts or an addict’s family members. Listeners will hear stories of tragedy, desperation, celebration and hope. Listeners will also hear the message that, for those who are addicted, the world does get brighter and recovery works.
Sponsored and designed by local company, Burlington Labs, the installation is the reflection of many years of research by local filmmaker, Bess O’Brien for her new documentary, ‘The Hungry Heart’. For the installation, O’Brien worked with photographer Carley Stevens-McLaughlin and audio documentarian, Erica Heilman. O’Brien’s work has focused largely on the prescription opiate epidemic, and, specifically, the pediatric practice of St. Albans physician, Dr. Fred Holmes. The portraits and voices for Portraits of Recovery: Voices of Addiction come from the large body of research and interviews she gathered for her movie, ‘The Hungry Heart’.
A feature of the exhibit, Dr. Holmes gives his view on the prescription opiate epidemic. ‘We, as a community, have to change the way that we look at addiction in generalâ ¦it is an illness that our children have,’ he explains. Dr. Holmes describes his support role as ‘a magical, glorious line of work.’
Founder and CEO of Burlington Labs, Michael Casarico, said, ‘We are honored to be able to bring such an important and educational exhibit to the public. So much more education needs to be done in our community to dispel the stigma of addiction. We celebrate recovery every day at Burlington Labs. Putting this exhibit in the middle of downtown Burlington will bring awareness to people who may not otherwise have an opportunity to learn and know that recovery is powerful and it works.’
Portraits of Recovery: Voices of Addiction will run through the end of September in honor of National Recovery Month. O’Brien’s movie, ‘The Hungry Heart’ will premiere September 27th at the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts in honor of Recovery Day in Burlington.
Burlington Labs was founded by Michael and Jodie Casarico in 2006 in order to bring better drug testing services to our community. With backgrounds in substance abuse treatment, the Casaricos have pledged to give back at least ten percent to the communities in which they do business.
BURLINGTON, VT ‘ September 16, 2013