Artefacts of Broken Hearts
Who has been spared from a broken relationship? At some time everyone has experienced a loss or rupture in a relationship – sometimes less and sometimes more painful. Bonds breaking into bits and pieces leave hurting and bitter fragments behind – those are welcomed in the collection of the Museum of Broken Relationships in Croatia. As for me the way to Zagreb is much farther than to Brussels, I felt very lucky when I found out that the Parlamentarium was hosting a temporary exhibition from the Museum of Broken Relationships.
At the Parlamentarium my daughter, my husband and myself pick up our bag from the baggage screener and stand in the foyer. To our left we see the entrance of the exhibition on the European Union – the Parlamentarium itself. My eyes are looking for the entry to the temporary exhibition until we ask a host who sends us two floors down. After crossing the shop and the café we find the exhibition on broken relationships. The space for artefacts of broken hearts is located next to the exit of Parlamentarium’s main exhibition. While reading the introduction text I notice that many visitors of the permanent exhibition just walk past the space. It seems that being filled with ample information on the European Union, visitors either need a coffee in the café or disappear in the shop instead of discovering one more exhibition. We came just to visit the exhibition from the Museum of Broken Relationships but it seems that most people come for the permanent exhibition.
A space of about 100 square metres hosts the objects of broken relationships. They are presented on low pedestals made from flake boards – the perfect height for my two-year-old daughter. She grabs excitedly one of the two self-sewed puppets that dangle on thin nylon threads from the ceiling (of course I stopped her early enough). Indeed, their tender and loving appearance – one puppet with a tiny sewing machine attached, the other with pencils and a CD – encourages me to find out more. Intrigued by the objects I read the text on the top of the pedestals. The two puppets represent a couple and their professions – she a tailor who made the puppets and he an art director and musician. After their break-up he donated the little couple and their story to the museum.
The plain presentation on wooden pedestals contrasts with the emotional powerful stories that are connected to the objects. In the exhibition usual objects become so interesting for visitors. An open wooden suitcase with self-recorded tapes right away grabbed my attention. A woman donated them because her former love taped them for her while being abroad for a time period. Now the reminders of love and return cause pain and need to leave. People’s stories turn objects into glowing participants of love stories and their ends. Once you have started viewing the first object and reading the plot they played in, the next object’s role and story draws you in. The unique role in people’s relationships and objects as material signs of people’s bonds turn these objects into precious items. However, The Museum of Broken Relationships seems to be more than a collector of people’s broken bonds. The act of giving away objects that became signs of love and rupture – and sharing those stories of bonds and break-ups provides an essential cultural technique to reprocess emotions. The museum seems to support breaking the bonds with the emotions of the break-up.
I would have loved to look at every object and read its story but my daughter’s curiosity forces us to change scenes. We go up the stairs back in the foyer where I recognise three of the flake board pedestal from the display downstairs staging objects. I realise that this little ensemble of objects I oversaw earlier points to the temporary exhibition of broken relationships in the Parlamentarium. Now we go and see what the permanent exhibition has to offer, in which my daughter has already disappeared.