A small axe lies in a glass case. The card next to it explains that it was used on the furniture left behind by an ex-lover. “Every day I axed one piece of her furniture. I kept the remains there, as an expression of my inner condition. The more her room filled with chopped furniture acquiring the look of my soul, the better I felt.”
“LIES, DAMN LIES!” says a card next to a little stuffed toy. “I got this teddy bear for Valentine’s. He survived on top of my closet in a plastic bag, because it wasn’t him who hurt me, but the idiot who left him behind.”
Next to a display case holding a cell phone, the card reads simply, “He gave me his phone so I couldn’t call him any more.”
These are just a handful of the exhibits at the Museum of Broken Relationships in the Croatian capital city, Zagreb. Having had my heart broken more than once in my life–and having broken more than my share as well–I couldn’t resist a visit to the museum on my recent trip to Croatia. I spent most of a day there, unable to tear myself away.
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Each exhibit in the museum is a donated item representing a lost love—a boyfriend’s hat, a girlfriend’s shirt, a toaster, a bowl—along with the story behind it. Some are hilarious, most are sad, a few are heartbreaking. They are all riveting.
Our societies provide rituals for marriages, funerals, and even graduations, says the museum website, but they offer no way to recognize the end of a relationship.
To fill this gap, Croatians Olinka Vistica and Drazen Grubisic began soliciting objects left over from broken love affairs. The little mementos that, as journalist Jeremy Clarkson puts it, “turn us into sobbing, shoulder-heaving wrecks” after a breakup.
The response has been overwhelming. The museum has received thousands of donated items. It has been featured in The New York Times, Le Monde, BBC World Service, and CNN. It has toured the world, and spawned two books. In 2011, it was declared Europe’s “most innovative museum.”
The Dropped Stitch
At root, it is all about storytelling, of course. It is the story behind each donation that ambushes the heart.
“There is the pattern, and then there is the dropped stitch that disrupts the pattern,” writes memoirist Dani Shapiro. “Stories are about the dropped stitch. About what happens when the pattern breaks.”
What the museum curators understand is that nothing breaks a pattern more abruptly than the disruption that crashes into your life when your heart is broken. This is the universal story behind the museum: The dropped stitch that unravels your heart when love falls apart.
The Reweaving
But in stories, there is also healing. “We cloistered writers hope our wounds will be turned into pearls,” wrote my ex-husband, the late writer Omar S. Castaneda, years ago.
The museum offers the brokenhearted the chance to tell their stories, to “overcome an emotional collapse through creation.”
Stories, whether they are told through poetry, plays, novels, or museum displays, may start with the unraveling of our lives, but they also help us knit ourselves back together.
And you? What item could you donate to the Museum of Broken Relationships? What dropped stitches do you write about? How does telling your stories help you reweave the broken patterns? Share your thoughts!
This is such a great post with an even greater idea inside! I would love to go to the museum, but we shall see – perhaps one day? My mind is going wild wondering where will the museum put any new objects? I mean this could go wild! Just the thought of the amount of people with broken hearts round the world – that could a very high percentage. Sorry I will stop now as I’m getting a tad carried away.
I’m really glad you liked the post, Tracy. You pose a very interesting question. I do know that when they put out a call for objects from Mexico (where the exhibit was touring), they were overwhelmed and could only use a tiny fraction! Yes, there are so many people with broken hearts!