Jan. 26 (UPI) — British Columbia residents are putting their own misfires on display at the Museum of Personal Failure in Vancouver.
The exhibition at the Kingsgate Mall was dreamed up by Burnaby resident Eyvan Collins, who was inspired by the end of a romantic relationship.
“I just needed to do something with it — and this is what I did,” Collins told CBC News.
Collins put up posters across the region seeking exhibits with the headline: “Failures wanted.”
“For me, it’s sort of a combination catharsis/concept exploration,” Collins told Vancouver is Awesome. “I guess at this point, what it has become is an anthropological look at what constitutes failure to an individual and what that looks like in material form.”
The pop-up museum features a “wall of reject,” which is plastered with various submitted employment application rejections and firing notices.
Jennifer Campbell, Collins’ mother, submitted her wedding dress for display.
“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.”
Casey Vilensky, a bladesmith with Lynn Valley Forge, submitted a knife he made that turned out to be unsharpenable due to the chemical properties of his quenching oil.
“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,” Vilensky said.
The museum also features photographs and other artifacts of failed relationships, as well as tie rods from a failed car repair, a record of “failed songs” from a local music producer and a stamp Collins attempted to make to promote the museum.
“I got most of the way through before it occurred to me that this was going to make a backwards image,” Collins said.
Each item is accompanied by a written explanation from the person who submitted it.
“Looking at the actual objects, you’re like, ‘This is just a thing,’ but within the context it’s imbued with meaning,” Collins said. “It’s interesting looking at a scrap from a person’s life and then to hear the story behind it.”
The Museum of Failure runs through Feb. 3 at the Kingsgate Mall in Vancouver.