Original publishing date: May 16, 2022

On the 10th of May CUCo organized ‘The Great Failure Festival’, a day driven by the strange relationship between science and failing. One could argue that failing ought to be inherent to science. Gaining new insights cannot be done without encountering some failure along the way, both on a personal and a scientific level. However, the current high pressure academic environment is not supportive of failure. So we asked ourselves: How do we talk about failure? How should we fail? Can we fail? What can the consequences be of failures?

Over the course of the afternoon we explored this in several forms: Through talks, interviews, workshops and a theatre performance we delved into the topic of failure, and associated elements. For example, one of the workshop focused specifically on the element of ‘perfection stress’ and dealing with perfectionism. What does it mean if we ourselves believe nothing we ever do is good enough? How do we overcome this? It was eye opening to see what people encounter in themselves when asked about failure and failing in a shared, but safe, space.

Then, we as CUCo would like to thank those people that shared their experiences and science with us so openly on stage: Kate Massarella and Scott Douglas. Secondly, a big thank you to our workshop leaders (Scott Douglas, Instituut voor Faalkunde, and Focality Media) and to the amazing improvisation actors that ended the program with such positivity. Finally, we want to thank all of you that came to The Great Failure Festival! The festival would not have been the same without your openness, positivity and constructive attitude. Exploring the topic of failure in these different settings has proved exciting, challenging, and remarkably personal. Hopefully we can continue to discuss this together, but also bring our newfound appreciation of conversing about failure back into the wider world.

Below a few snapshots of the day.