Pink Flamingos

This chapter examines the Pink Flamingos creative project as a case study in socially engaged performance practice that explores the intersections of motherhood, vulnerability, and addiction recovery. Drawing on feminist theories of vulnerability (Gilson, 2014), care ethics (Tronto, 1993; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017 ), and recovery as worldbuilding (Theodoropoulou, 2023), the chapter situates creative practice as an ethico-political mode of knowledge production. Combining autoethnography with the narratives of women in recovery, it investigates how artistic processes such as journaling and performance can facilitate agency, belonging, and relational forms of care. Through these creative encounters, participants reimagine themselves beyond stigma, constructing alternative narratives of recovery that value creativity, interdependence, and resilience. The analysis argues that socially engaged performance can operate as a site of “quiet activism” ( Low 2024 ), where vulnerability becomes a transformative resource for rethinking care, recovery, and gendered experiences of becoming.