The idea of failure and, conversely, that of success are two structural factors upon which most contemporary human societies are predicated. Stemming directly from the capitalist economic system (which infects all other social and cultural systems) and based on a false idea of meritocracy, such a dichotomy allows for reasserting said system: it is always a matter of consuming/producing/ doing/experiencing more, and better, than any other person. The fear of failure (simultaneous to the desire for success) has become not only one of humanity's most universal impulses but also the value of judgment we use to evaluate ourselves (and those around us), serving as a measure that establishes social hierarchies: someone's success is always predicated upon (and compared with) somebody else's. According to Lisa Le Feuvre, this judgment is symptomatic of the time and place in which it is established and dependent upon the critical apparatus that defines it. Thus, the notions of failure and success are never free from prerogatives and privileges: in a heteronormative, patriarchal, Eurocentric, capitalist society, the idea of success is intrinsically linked to various structural factors, such as skin colour, gender, sexuality, social status, and wealth, but most of all to fulfilling expected roles within these categories.

In the universe of art, however, the conception of failure is engendered within a vaguer spectrum: artists have known for a while the importance of failing, of learning from failure, and of making space for failure and its experience to become a way to rethinking their place in the world—a space which exists in the gap between the intention behind the work and its materialisation, where mistakes can never be avoided. Between dissatisfaction, rejection, idealism, doubt, error, experience, and progress, the idea of successively trying and failing fuels speculative experimentation and conceptual creation. If we look at the historical example of the Salon des Refusés (1863)—an exhibition featuring several artists (many of whom have become internationally renowned) who were rejected from the famous Paris Salon because their works did not fit the artistic canons of the time—we may be able to grasp how failure is endemic to the creative act. Furthermore, it can also help us see beyond contemporary formulations and notions of failure, and realize how it can set the theme to recreate spaces, concepts, and discourses.

Likewise, in reckoning the measure of success as a white, male, cisgender, heterosexual one, queer communities and feminist movements have appropriated the counter-hegemonic potentialities inherent in the act of failing. Failing to meet patriarchal standards and ideals is a form of resistance, and an act of courage that not only allows these identities to survive but also makes it possible to develop a form of liberation from the violence which punitive normativity brings upon every body. That being the case, failure is no longer regarded as a space of mediocrity with which negative feelings are associated but rather as an essential territory for creating new open systems, spaces, and discourses that enable one to call exclusive, monolithic significations into question.

Having led to successive postponements, the current pandemic allowed for expanding this curatorial project, thus enabling the formation of new knowledges, ideas, and priorities. As such, the artists featured in this exhibition were wilfully selected in a profoundly affective way, with full awareness that the resistance contained in the act of failing can only exist when performed collectively. In seeking to stimulate contemporary creation and to stress the need for new spaces and means for new artistic generations and concerns, I also aimed at asserting a curatorial methodology predicated upon working with people with whom I inevitably share political convictions, ideas, and responsibilities, but also burdens. This was the basis for deploying a conceptual plurality of failure, in order for contemporary visual production to be appraised in light not only of the impact of current social and political systems, but also of the phenomenological and cultural complexity of the idea of failure, reckoning artistic creation as an ecology of knowledges and formulations of resistances. Above all, what drove me was creating a space to embrace possibilities of (categorical) failure, preventing the notions of failure and success, linked to ideas of privilege and hierarchy, from governing our lives, experiences, and bodies.

The conceptualisation of the exhibition as an instance of collective (curatorial and artistic) experimentation, as well as the appropriation of the institution as a laboratory where there is no right or wrong, makes it (or so I hope) an affective space where care and trust allow for sharing cons- tructive opinions, welcoming mutual creative col- laboration, and taking a fearless stance on failing. The exhibition is seen as a place for intimacy where creation means both discourse and sharing, where the perception of failure is not feared, where expectation must not be seen as an urge—where, perhaps, others' perceptions can be listened to, where error can be discussed in an informed, engaged way, and where, perhaps, new possibili- ties of resistance can be communally imagined. As such, we invite all to critique, talk about, and create discourse around this ever-unfinished exhibition, where every body is given room to fail.