Inside the museum of failure.
An exhibit featuring some of technology’s biggest flops is a showcase of the lessons that can be learnt in the creative process
COFFEE-flavoured CocaCola, anyone? How about a perfume that gives you the lovely waft of motorbike in the morning? For the food connoisseur there’s lasagne made by a toothpaste manufacturer, and for those wanting to refresh and rejuvenate there’s a facial mask that sends mild shocks into your skin.
Unsurprisingly, these weird wonders never really took off but their makers might take comfort that they’re now getting positive press. And that’s all thanks to the fact they’re now in a monument to epic fails.
The Museum Of Failure is the brainchild of Samuel West, a researcher and connoisseur of flopped products. It opens in Helsingborg, Sweden, in June but its aim isn’t to laugh at the silliness of the products.
Instead, the museum celebrates the creativity that emerged from ideas that flopped.
“I think we’re afraid of failures,” West says in an interview with NPR.org. “And I think the Museum Of Failure sort of shows failures need to be accepted if we want to develop, if we want to innovate.”
He got the idea for the museum after visiting the Museum Of Broken Relationships in Croatia. One exhibit showed a cellphone.
“There was a little text that said, ‘I remember my relationship. We had a great summer, and we were planning to have kids together.’ And then in the display case there’s a cellphone with a charger. And it says, ‘And then at the end of the summer he gave me his phone along with the charger and said, This is so you can never call me again’.”
It inspired him, West says. “It’s just brilliant – like, a physical item representing the whole cause of the broken relationships.
“Anyway, when I saw that museum I rushed out and I had this sort of eureka moment that I’m going to start the Museum Of Failure.”
Here’s a selection of the products that have found their miserable way to West’s museum.