Tear

Tearstones: What's in a tear

Crying is the shedding of tears (or welling of tears in the eyes) in response to an emotional state, pain or physical irritation of the eye. Tears can be caused by grief, pain and heavy emotions but exceptional tenderness and loveliness can feel heartbreaking too. 'What's in a tear' by Merle Bergers aims at making it easier to talk about the emotions linked to our most personal stories, by making a lasting stone out of the minerals of tears and placing them in a ring.

A silicone watertight stopper invites you to collect your tears. In the bottle is a little ball that needs to be covered in the fluid. It helps to shift the bottle to an angle. After crying, give the bottle some time to release the warmth of your tears and put the stopper back on tightly.

The collected tears can be sent to Merle Bergers from which she proceeds to carefully transform them into the 'tearstone' using a high temperature oven. The tiny ball in the bottle is made out of a material that will soak up a bit of the liquid and subsequently hold some of the minerals.

The minerals will transform into a beautiful glaze-like material.

Text submitted by the maker and edited by the Future Materials Bank. For information about reproducing (a part of) this text, please contact the maker.