A new exhibition at Vancouver’s dubiously iconic Kingsgate Mall features lost hopes, shattered dreams and crushed ambitions — and a whisper of hope.
The Museum of Personal Failure, which runs Jan. 24 to Feb. 3, explores the experiences of failure through artifacts submitted by the public, ranging from a wedding dress of a failed marriage, to non-working knives, to a can of spilled paint.
Curated by Burnaby resident Eyvan Collins, the idea for the Museum of Personal Failure originated when a relationship ended.
“I felt like a failure. It was a heartbreak,” Collins said.
“I just needed to do something with it — and this is what I did.”
Collins made posters saying “Failures Wanted” and plastered them on garbage cans, curbs and electrical boxes.
Soon he had emails offering to display all sorts of artifacts of failures.
Failure is an essential part of life, Collins said.
“It’s part of making an attempt. Sometimes it goes the way you want it to, sometimes it doesn’t,” he said.
A “Wall of Reject” includes firing notices and rejection letters.
The Museum of Personal Failure runs Jan. 24 to Feb. 3. (Mike Zimmer/CBC)
Collins’ mother, Jennifer Campbell, submitted her wedding dress.
“I wanted to sort of tell a story about a failing that occurred in my marriage, and how we were able to move on,” she said.
“I’ve called it Threads of Innocence, because it’s about the innocence of false fairy tales or things that you think are going to happen when you’re young … and it doesn’t happen.”
She noted the significance of how she displayed the dress in a moving box: it represents how people can move on from difficult moments.
Jennifer Campbell submitted a wedding dress in a moving box as an exhibit for the Museum of Personal Failure in Vancouver. (Mike Zimmer/CBC)
But just because something is a failure doesn’t mean wonderful things can’t happen from it, Campbell said.
“You just grow and you move on,” she said.
The wedding dress isn’t the museum’s only artifact of love lost.
Vancouver-based artist Dana Belcourt submitted a blurry film photograph of a past partner titled Photograph of a Failed Situationship.
A situationship, in Belcourt’s definition, is a “halfway relationship” — a push-pull relationship imbalance in which one partner wants something more and the other wants something less.
The photo is both a metaphorical and an artistic failure, she said, as she couldn’t capture him in a relationship or a clear photograph.
“Sometimes failure can be a good thing. I think it’s actually a good thing that I didn’t end up in a relationship with this person,” Belcourt said.
WATCH | This curator put posters up at knee height:
A Museum of Personal Failure is coming to Vancouver’s Kingsgate Mall
Failed art projects, broken items and a wedding dress of regret would all have a home in the Museum of Personal Failure, which is coming to Kingsgate Mall this month. For more on what people can expect from the exhibit of oddities, CBC’s Stephen Quinn spoke with curator Evyan Collins, who says the project has become bigger than they’d hoped.
Failed knives — that look beautiful but don’t work — are also on display.
Bladesmith Casey Vilensky of Lynn Valley Forge submitted a knife that can’t be sharpened due to an issue with the chemical properties of his quenching oil.
For Vilensky, failure is progress.
“Failure is a step forward. You don’t go forward unless you fail. You have to be able to look back at your failures, figure out why they failed and change the process and move on. I don’t harp on them … I put them in the bucket,” he said.
Working on his submission for the exhibition has sparked an interest in making art pieces for galleries.
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Somebody might find this interesting.”
Some of the knives and steel submitted by Casey Vilensky and other bladesmiths that didn’t turn out as planned. (Mike Zimmer/CBC)
Jamie Greenberg, a music producer who performs as Jam!e, submitted 33 Dollar Bill: Failed Album a hip-hop dance album of six “failed songs.”
He said it showcases his first attempts at producing music.
“Hopefully I’ve gotten a lot better, but that’s not what the point of this exhibit is. This exhibit is about the point where I failed five years ago.”
Greenberg said failure is “ironically the most key ingredient in success.”
“Ninety-nine per cent of the time, unless, I don’t know, there’s some crazy accident or whatever, you’re not going to have success without failure pretty much ever.”
Michael Brooks notes that in a welcome turn of events, he succeeded with his submission to the Museum of Personal Failures exhibition. (CBC)
Michael Brooks took a deeply introspective look into the “failure” prompt.
He called his exhibit Personal Failure: Life Story of a Queer, Neurodivergent Soul.
It’s a written memoir of his life, sharing “crazy moments” and Brooks’ experience as an autistic person also coming to terms with being queer.
He hopes others with similar identities can read his story and see they’re not alone.
Getting accepted into an exhibition is a victory in itself, Brooks said.
“It could have just been another failure … but, you know, this was the one time where it actually kind of flipped, and it actually turned into a success.”