I recently popped in to visit the Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb, Croatia. It was a pilgrimage of sorts, as I’d been intrigued by rave reviews of the museum and the fact that in 2011 it won the Kenneth Hudson European Museum of the Year award for “the most unusual, daring and, perhaps, controversial achievement that challenges common perceptions of the role of the museums in society.” Friends found it strange that I went with my husband, Jim, but I think he enjoyed it too. And we are still together.
The inspiration for the museum came from two artists, Olinka Vištica and Dražen Grubišić, who began the museum after their own relationship unraveled. They’re fascinated by the role that things, the ordinary stuff of life, play in a relationship—and when that relationship ends. Vištica has written, “each of them [the objects] are mute witnesses to better and happier times, silent, but loaded with meaning. Even the most banal object has a story to tell.”
An ordinary garden gnome becomes a narrator of love gone wrong.
The objects in the museum, sent in by ex-lovers around the world, are definitely banal, including a garden gnome, a prosthetic leg, lots of stuffed toys, a few clocks, a hand axe, deodorant, and pink fluffy handcuffs. And yet, disparate as the articles are, what unites them is the power of a story. We should never forget that people are at the center of all museums, from the visitors to the people who made, used, cherished, or discarded the objects we show. These things, then, are always loaded with meaning—with a narrative—and each object in the Museum of Broken Relationships tells a story of pleasure and pain through the narrative of romance.
The detritus of a romance without a leg to stand on.
I wasn’t prepared for what a cathartic place it is. The act of releasing a memento to the museum seems to be the final step in dispatching a terminated relationship. The labels, written by the donors, are sometimes long and introspective—meditations on romantic meltdowns. Others are delightfully direct: “A gift from S.K. from 1987. She loved antiquities—as long as things were old and didn’t work. That is precisely the reason why we’re not together anymore.” Another favorite: “The prosthesis endured longer than our love. It was made of sturdier material!”
The visit made me recall the old vacuum cleaner in my closet. It is all I have left from a fiancé of more than 20 years ago and represents a moment of triumph for me since he really coveted that vacuum cleaner—but I took it with me when I left.