If
you ever visit Zagreb, in Croatia, you shall not lose the chance to
visit a very peculiar museum: The
museum of broken relationships. http://brokenships.com/
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| Entrance poster |
Some
old shoes, a coat, a love letter, a special CD, a soft stuffed
heart... are some of the objects than can be found and, apparently,
have no connexion between them, almost like a 21st
Century cabinet of curiosities, more organized and spaced, with white
walls and modern supports. Then, with the help of a paper guide, you
get to find out of the different sentimental conflicts of each
individual person that has left an object there because, in fact,
that's a museum which could totally be communal. Real stories from
people all around the world, telling us about the pain they suffered
when their lover dump them, when they lost love in a war, or the
dreadful rage for that person who never treated them as they
deserved.
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All
of it are true stories, lived and explained in first-person narrative
for its own protagonists; anyone can leave an object and be able to
feel that a part of that person, and a part of that old relationship,
lasts in this space.
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More or less poetical, with more discursive coherence or less of it, nastier or not at all, everyone of the donors is free to define their objects in their own way and that definition will not be changed.
We
can find, for example, a love letter that was never sent because the
lover dumped that person, with an e-mail, before the letter could be
sent, and the broken-hearted decided to stick the letter to a glass
and breaking it, as a kind of completion ritual.
The
initiative was supposed to be the creation of an itinerary exposition
that would run around the world before disappear, as so many do. But
the need and great success of the idea turned it into a permanent
exhibition, which placement was finally decided to be in the old town
of the Croatian capital.
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View
of the city from the Old Town
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The
development of the project was a participation of two Croatian
artists: Olinka Vištica, film producer, and sculptor Dražen
Grubisic who, when they broke their relationship, decided to create,
half jokingly, a museum to place the personal objects that reminded
them of their life together. In 2006, with help from other friends,
that project came true and was shown at the 41st
Zagreb Salon. It was a huge success, and from Zagreb it went to other
Balkan countries, and also Argentina, Germany, Singapore, Indonesia,
and many other countries until 2010 with a collection almost as twice
as large thanks to the donations that the visitors made in each expo.
That same year, the two artists decided they wanted it to be a real
museum, permanent, and the rent the space where it is now, this being
the first private museum in Croatia. Their originality was awarded in
2011 with the Kenneth
Hudson Award.
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That
experience show us that feelings go beyond borders, highlighting its
universality: the difficulty of saying goodbye, rage or failed love
are the main topics of the museum that can't leave you indifferent
and, in fact, it reflects the cultural, political and social
tradition of each of the persons who took part on it, turning in
public what in theory is meant to be private, creating a space where
the line between privacy and the public becomes almost non-existent.
You start the guide and you finish it, you won't skip a line because,
deep inside, we all like to gossip and look into other people's life.
From
all around the world; from Belgrade to Canada and from Indonesia to
Mexico, they are ephemeral witnesses of perennial concepts, as are
the human feelings, both universal and individual at the same time.
Guiomar Sánchez
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