I’m excited by something I stumbled across when following tweets from Moseley barcamp over the weekend (Why was I following Moseley barcamp? Moseley’s nowhere near me. in fact I don’t know exactly where is is. sorry Moseley, I promise to find out. anyway, back to the why – simple answer – I want to learn from what other people are doing. or I’m nosy)
And what did I stumble across? FAILCamp. A barcamp celebrating failure. Which, as one of life’s great failures, appeals to me greatly.
Big up (is that still something the ‘kids’ say? probably not) Benjamin Whitehouse and Pete Ashton who’ve taken their kernel of an idea and in a very short space of time turned it into something that’s GOING TO HAPPEN, which is exciting in itself.
But it’s the whole idea of celebrating failure that’s really getting me going.
Many, many years ago, when I was a fashion student (source of many failures in itself. mostly related to what I wore. which could be the basis of a whole FAILCamp in itself) I first learnt about the creative value of failure. For every good design, there was a long trail of failures. Most of the time a very, very, very long trail.
The failures informed the successes. And sometimes, by happy accident, the failures were better than the original idea. Failure was also public – through regular open criticism by tutors (or routine humiliation in front of peers. which was nice. but did help teach me how to interrogate and criticise my ideas. or to argue for them).
I still fail on a daily basis. But I don’t share my failures so much. Or take time to properly reflect on them/learn from them. Partly due to pressures on my time, partly due to laziness/complacency. But mostly because it has somehow become the wrong thing to do.
And that’s why a celebration of failure is so exciting to me. Because it was my failures, & what they taught me, that fueled my creativity and made my work better then. And made me who I am now. And I want to celebrate that.
And I think we should fail and fail again. better. and more often.
Oh, and I heard there’d be drinks.
Tags: FAILCamp, failure, fashion, social media