Pink Milk

Can you catch a dream? Can you distill an emotion? And how about drinking an elixir that is drenched with the collective state-of-mind of unknown strangers? 

All of the above is presented to you like pink mother-milk on Pink Ribbon night in Bergen-op-Zoom. Meike Ziegler demonstrates that a Creatual; creative ritual can help people to give painful memories a resting place, and create hope for the future.

A table full of old-fashioned milk bottles set the stage for the ritual. The bottles are labeled with i.e. love, respect, dream, hope, inspiration, future. In the middle of the table lies a pile of strokes of transparent paper. All participants are invited to write down a wish, an emotion, or something that simply strike them at that moment. Afterwards they immerse their stroke of paper in the milk, and they slowly see the letters, their dreams and emotions dissolve into the milk. As if their feelings had been condensed into this one statement and then unleashed and transformed into milk by emotional alchemy.

After everybody have done their confessions and have seen these transform into pink mother-milk, the collected mental revelations are served as a drink that literally contains emotions. Some people chose to drink hope, others to drink inspiration and yet others take a nip of the future.

This creatual is part of a series of emotional interventions that Meike has created at several occasions. The Creatual is always in the form of interactive artistic installations, the audience is invited to participate in a ritual that transforms their emotional state. For some this might be experienced as slightly provocative, and that is also part of the intention, because to open up it is necessary to break down barriers.

I think events like these are a sign of New Spirituality, we need to give meaning to the events that happen to us in life. In the recent past the church helped us with that, but with the increase in atheism people are looking for new ways to get to terms with life-changing events and find strength and hope to get on with their life.