About the project.

The Catalogue of Failures questions the well-worn cultural stories told about failure.

The catalogues feature failed artworks and creative responses to failure that have been contributed by artists based all around the world. The catalogues are made to start conversations.

Failures (the unexpected, unruly, uncontrollable, accidental, the not-part-of-the-plan, the undesired outcomes) are taken out of their original context and encountered afresh, without their baggage. We soon realise that where the contributor sees failure, the reader sees much more.

About the creator.

My name is Alice Clough, and I’m an artist based in Southwest England. I am also an archaeologist and anthropologist. I am fascinated by the stories people tell themselves and each other about the world and how things are.

I started this project as part of my own exploration of failure, at a time when it was coming thick and fast! I was curious about why failure still carries a stigma, even though it’s something everyone experiences some time in their life.

Since then the project has captured the hearts and minds of a steadily growing audience around the world. My hope with this work is to create a rare and valuable space that supports anyone to pause and reflect on their own relationship to failure, however big or small.