Artifacts on ‘failure’ on display at Vancouver pop-up museum
Posted January 27, 2026 1:36 pm.
Last Updated January 27, 2026 5:41 pm.
People often celebrate their successes in life, but the curator of a new pop-up museum in a Vancouver mall is proudly flaunting failures.
A broken typewriter, an unsuccessful demo CD, and a wall of job rejection emails are among the many artifacts on display at the Museum of Personal Failure, now open in the Kingsgate Mall.
Eyvan Collins thought up the idea of the museum after a failed relationship.
“I liked the notion that what looks like a failure to a person whose life experience it’s connected to might look really different to someone else,” Collins explained.
“I started putting up these posters, asking for artifacts of personal failure, and people started emailing me bits and bobs from their lives.”
Demonstrating an exhibit of a small jar, contributor Elizabeth Armerding told CityNews about submitting a dead tarantula.
“I adopted this tarantula from some people who no longer wanted her. I never cared for one before… six months later she died, and I felt like I was unfit to be a mother,” Armerding explained.
Items on display came with a description of why they signify failure. Tara Murray’s item is a dead aloe plant.
“I haven’t been very good with plants and growing and keeping things alive,” said Murray.
“I really appreciate having a spot that celebrates the things that we don’t succeed at, and are messy and not beautiful and wonderful.”
Contributors say seeing other people’s “failures” on display encourages them to accept their own.
“Everybody bringing their failures together shows how much we need that human connection of understanding that it’s OK to fail,” said Armerding.
“It could happen to anyone,” said Murray. “You’re not alone in not being good at something, but being good at something else.”
The museum is free to the public and runs until Feb. 3 — if nothing else fails.
