In the cultural sector, we often talk about “successful projects”. The expression seems clear, but we rarely ask what it means, for whom it means something, and at what cost that supposed success was achieved.
In most cases, success is measured from the outside: audience numbers, touring, media visibility, references in reports, digital metrics that turn impact into graphs. All of this matters, but it only tells part of the story.
What is left out is the inside of the process: the extra hours, the invisible and unpaid work, the exhaustion of teams, the constant instability between projects, the feeling that the final result went well… but left very little room for continuity. There are projects that “look successful” on the outside and, on the inside, leave accumulated wear and tear.
A large part of this myth comes from the way the system is structured. Applications, reports, digital platforms and institutional communication demand linear narratives: objectives, activities, indicators, results. Everything has to fit into a coherent story, even when reality was made of detours, improvisation and survival.
Artists and teams themselves, often out of necessity, learn to tell the project in “success mode”. It is not manipulation: it is a legitimate attempt to protect future work. No one wants to risk the next grant by revealing fragilities that are part of any creative process.
The problem arises when that language replaces the real experience. When the sector begins to believe its own simplified versions. When the successful project stops being a space for learning and becomes a model to be repeated, even if, internally, it was unsustainable.
This does not mean undervaluing genuine achievements. There are projects that transform people, communities and artistic practices. There are teams that, with very limited resources, accomplish extraordinary things. But looking at success more carefully is also a form of respect for the work: it allows us to recognise limits, costs and conditions that need to change.
Perhaps it would be more useful to speak less about “successful projects” and more about projects that are able to endure over time without destroying themselves from within. That is another kind of success. More discreet, less mediatised, but far more structurally meaningful for the sector.
Photo: © Daria Nepriakhina | Unsplash
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