TOWER ROOM, WATERLOO

Being Too Precious: An Unsuccessful Show

6 - 18 November

The perception of failure as a form of personal and professional inadequacy is one of the primary inhibitors of the creative process. Being Too Precious: An Unsuccessful Show is an exhibition which bestows upon failure as much right to exist and be recognised on its own terms as achievement.

Rather than trying to reframe failure as a form of success or a catalyst for excellence, Being Too Precious: An Unsuccessful Show takes failure at face-value and accepts it for what it is, whatever that is.

Performing success is a societal mandate that no one escapes from and the demand for endless dress rehearsal making ‘The Real Thing’ indistinguishable from what went before it. This exhibition contains abandoned experiments, bad ideas, things that didn't resolve, embarrassing attempts, failed collaborations, rejected work and things that are technically competent but conceptually dead.

What will emerge, amongst and within us, from the discomfort and vulnerability of putting failure in the spotlight?