REJECTIONS – EXHIBITION PLANNING FOR JANUARY 2027

As a sometime graphics professional from the years 1996 – 2021, I was used to providing creative solutions to briefs that were frequently turned down, sent back, dismissed. Any creative act commissioned is an iterative process and if each party is serious about finding the best result, the negotiation can be a fruitful process; an opportunity to learn.

Further to completing a late stage BA in Creative Arts Practice, I found myself attempting to immanentist a portfolio career as a creative artist. I had a wealth of ideas, some of them good, and began to pitch them, to apply for funding, to address open calls and residencies. I was under no illusion that all or any of my proposals would be met with agreement, and yet somehow I felt the rejections more acutely than I was expecting.

During the course I became aware of Failure as ongoing coefficient in the creative act. It was impressed how failure could be harnessed, to be celebrated. I can’t go on, I’ll go on. Fail again, fail better. But rejection was not the same thing. Particularly rejection that came with no explanation, due to limited resources, or time.

Sorry, you have not been successful on this occasion.

Some rejections sent me into weeks of doubt and a depressed state, and caused me to wonder whether if rejections caused a dip in my mood, and if acceptance instilled a celebratory feeling, whether it would be better to feel nothing. To create, aware of rejection and success, but not allowing either in, to upset the delicate balance of my state of mind.

But if that was the case, what would be the point.

So I decided to reclaim my rejections, to expect them and to celebrate them and to live with them. Success, rejection’s elusive sibling, was to be treated with suspicion. The rejections were mine.

I considered the Documents of Contemporary Art published by The Whitechapel Gallery, One book had been published on the subject of Failure, but not on Rejection. (I was disappointed then to open that book and see the first section was titled “Dissatisfaction and Rejection”. The editors had incorrectly (IMO) folded rejection in with failure.

I shall be exhibiting some of the pieces I have made, along with evidence of where they were rejected from. Some rejected proposals will be 

made specifically for the exhibition. 

I have further documentation from earlier rejections that I would like to present in archive form.