FAILING FORWARD
Failing Forward touches on the core of what connects art, science, and life: that all are uncertain exercises with uncertain results. In this kaleidoscopic work of oddities, Marjolein Blom's photographic work of major and minor mysteries from the everyday world is interwoven with images from the NASA Archive depicting scientists working on spacecraft models.
A little more than half a century ago, in an era popularly known as the Space Age, optimism about scientific progress seemed endless. But while the innovations from the space industry found a way into our everyday lives, science grew increasingly distant from the everyday world in the following decades.
Scientific interpretations are complex and challenging for non-experts to grasp, making public understanding a matter of trust. In response to numerous recent global crises and the rise of populism, this already delicate relationship between science and the general public became even more fragile—underlined by doubt and mistrust and with a dangerous shift towards seeing scientific facts as opinions.
Ambiguity and unpredictability, however, are fundamental elements of the scientific process. Science will never give us permanent answers or immediate certainty. But perhaps we could see science as a metaphor for life itself? Just as surprising and unsure, a process of fall and rise?
While shifting between the enigmatic and the specific, between the clear and the ambiguous, Failing Forward revolves around wonder, truth-finding and the illusion of human control.
Essay Fail Better
written by Vincent Icke
Introduction
written by Merel Bem
