A curious artwork that is only complete once gallery visitors walk across it is coming to Salford Museum & Art Gallery this September.
Put Your Foot Down II is a temporary pathway constructed from dozens of blocks of floristry foam, commonly known as oasis.
Salford-based artist Maisie Pritchard is inviting visitors to travel the tactile path, leaving behind footprints and other marks.
As more people take part, the imprints left behind start to overlap, gradually transforming the work through collective movement.
And there’s more to the experience than simply the joy of taking part. The installation forms part of Recoverist Month programme of exhibitions, performances and creative events. Led by arts organisation Portraits of Recovery, the annual event places the arts at the centre of conversations about substance use and recovery every September.
The artwork asks visitors to consider recovery as a shared act of moving forward – a journey shaped by connection, change and detours along the way.
A series of workshops in the run up to the weekend-long experience invited Salford people in recovery to explore their city through walking, collecting and noticing. They used found and everyday materials to make tools, experiment with mark-making, create impressions in clay and floral foam, and reflect together on the experiences and ideas that emerged.
At a Salford Museum & Art Gallery event called Walk in My Shoes, visitors will encounter an archive of this process, bringing together tools, materials, experiments, photographs, traces and words from across the project. Rather than presenting a collection of finished artworks, the display will show how the project developed and how one activity, conversation or experiment led into another.
Put Your Foot Down II builds on an earlier artwork first showcased by Pritchard at The Manchester Contemporary art exhibition and was commissioned by Portraits of Recovery for this September’s Recoverist Month.
Mark Prest, founder director, Portraits of Recovery, said: “This artwork is activated through participation. Each step leaves a mark and helps make the work, contributing to a collective portrait of everyone who takes part.
“Recovery is often imagined as something straightforward, a journey from one place to another. Walk in My Shoes offers a different perspective: a process shaped by detours and mutual support.
“As visitors move across the installation, they leave traces of their presence alongside others. Individual journeys become part of something larger. The work proposes portraiture as something collective; an accumulation of shared experiences, movements and connections.”
Pritchard, who is based at Paradise Works artists’ studios, said: “Walk in My Shoes has developed quite organically through walking, collecting, making and spending time together. We haven’t been working towards one fixed outcome; each session has led into the next, bringing up different conversations, materials and ways of thinking about recovery.
“For the September event, I wanted to keep that sense of process visible rather than only presenting something finished. Visitors will be able to encounter some of what we’ve made and explored together, as well as taking part themselves through Put Your Foot Down.
“A lot of the project has been about simple acts of walking, noticing and making with what’s around us. I hope people come away feeling that creativity can be part of everyday life and doesn’t require specialist skills or previous experience.”
Walk in My Shoes is a Portraits of Recovery commission, developed and delivered in partnership with Salford Museum & Art Gallery and Paradise Works and funded by Achieve Recovery Asset Fund.
Walk in My Shoes, part of Recoverist Month, is at Salford Museum & Gallery, Crescent, Salford M5 4WU from 19-20 September 2026. Entry is free.