An under-knee prosthesis is displayed as a visitor attends the "Museum of Broken Relationships" exhibition during the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2009 January 7, 2009. The prosthesis is what remains of the former owners relationship with the social worker who helped him get the prosthesis in the first place. The museum, which opened in Singapore on Wednesday, is a travelling display of items related to failed relationships donated by people who live in the cities the museum has visited. REUTERS/Rina Ota (SINGAPORE)
Breaking up is never easy. But now closure from that failed love affair may only be a postage stamp away. You can send your broken heart–or trinkets that hold bitter memories– to Zagreb, the new home to the Museum of Broken Relationships.
The museum grew from an idea by Croatian artists Olinka Vistina and Drazen Grubisic who broke up in 2006 and wanted to display the bitter end of their romance. Before opening in Zagreb yesterday, the exhibition toured the world, from Istanbul to New York.
Each of the more than 100 items on display – including an axe, watches, photographs, clothing, teddy bears won in fairs and poetry – is explained by a story. One of the more random items is a landmine victim’s artificial leg as a tribute to the hospital romance he shared with a nurse before the couple drifted apart. Another is an axe from a woman who chopped her ex-girlfriend’s furniture after she left her for another woman. Under the axe, the women wrote: “The more her room filled up with chopped up furniture, the more I started to feel better. Two weeks after she was kicked out she came to take the furniture back. It was neatly arranged into small heaps and fragments of wood.”
So next time you go through a bad breakup, forget the endless tubs of Ben and Jerry’s or rebound relationships and why not put it on display.