When a relationship ends, whether it is of teenagers or a married couple, sooner or later this question always arises “What do I do with all the objects that we have given eachother or that represent a memory?”. We are like that, we keep things and keep memories, a bit as if we wanted to leave traces of that relationship that has just ended.
There is the photo taken at the sea that sunny day, the ticket from the first film seen together a little wrinkled but still whole and that stupid hat that was never put on but that was so funny. These objects need a place, but which one? It’s called the Museum of Broken Relationships and this is exactly the place to put the photo, the movie ticket and that stupid hat that was so funny.
The MUSEUM of BROKEN RELATIONSHIPS
# How the idea was born
The Museum of Broken Relationship is located in Zagreb and was born from the end of a relationship.
After four years together, the film producer Olinka Vištica and the sculptor Dražen Grubišić decided to separate and found themselves at a crossroads: throw away all the objects or keep them at home? Hence the idea.
Why not make a museum where you can put all the objects of our bond? After three years apart, the couple met again and made this idea born as a joke into a museum with four walls, a safe place that would give objects the importance they deserve, at a safe distance.
# Ended relationships from around the world
The collection was exhibited to the public for the first time in 2006, in the plaster cast gallery in Zagreb, when it still contained only the objects belonging to the relationship of the creators of this museum and some of their friends. After that it became a traveling exhibition that was able to contain the objects of all the relationships that ended in every part of the world.
The exhibition collected objects from Argentina, Germany, Singapore, memories that came from the relations of South Africa, the United States and many others.
In 2010, the former couple rented a space in the center of Zagreb, where the Museum of Broken Relationships was officially established.
# The stories of objects
Every object in the museum is accompanied by a story that contextualizes it, and explains what its meaning is and the memory to which it is connected.
There is no need to bring important objects of great objective value, in the end relationships are not made up of that. There may be expensive rings and luxury watches, yet probably the last thing we would like to part with is an old rumpled letter.
In the museum you can find everything.
There is a jar of gherkins purchased by a girl for her first love, who never corresponded with the sentiment and therefore never had the time to receive that precious jar of gherkins.
There is also an ex-wife’s silk wedding dress crammed into a jar of pickles, a place to which it was destined after her husband left after seven years of marriage.
A magnifying glass, a small bottle full of tears, a shoe, an apron and much more also have its place.
# The place where relationships never end
Relationships end, some in a good way and some in a bad one but things stay. Sometimes this feels like a torment, having those objects in front of your eyes that seem to be the symbol of an old thing.
What if we change the way we see these memories?
The museum of finished relationships exists for this reason, to give a place to those things that in two, ten or maybe twenty years will be the only evidence of a relationship, which has ended but has existed and deserves a place.
ARIANNA BOTTINI
