Sarah Brink- Museum of Broken Relationships

I came across an interesting museum called the Museum of Broken Relationships. It is in Zagreb, Croatia. It probably one of the more interesting museums that I have seen in my life. It is a museum that is based on donated belongings from past broken relationships that did not work out. It shows how people are going through more and more valuable relationship than in the past. The museum also thrives on the fact that we are a consumer society that buys and buys and relationships are part of this buying process. After a break up one might want to get rid of everything they were ever given to rid themselves of the person and to not have to have the reminder. This museum shows how the value and speciality of the object now reverts back to the original mundane object that it once was. The museum displays your donated item along with the story that goes behind it. I really like it because it gives a very intimate moment and object from somebody's life and portrays it to the world. It's interesting to hear the voice behind the person and to see the object's story. If I ever go to Croatia, I would like to stop by!


A quick glimpse at the exhibit:

She was the first woman that I let move in with me. All my friends thought I needed to learn to let people in more. A few months after she moved in, I was offered to travel to the US. She could not come along. At the airport we said goodbye in tears, and she was assuring me she could not survive three weeks without me. I returned after three weeks, and she said: “I fell in love with someone else. I have known her for just 4 days, but I know that she can give me everything that you cannot.”

I was banal and asked about her plans regarding our life together. The next day she still had no answer, so I kicked her out. She immediately went on holiday with her new girlfriend while her furniture stayed with me. Not knowing what to do with my anger, I finally bought this axe at Karstadt to blow off steam and to give her at least a small feeling of loss – which she obviously did not have after our break-up.

In the 14 days of her holiday, 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. Two weeks after she left, she came back for the furniture. It was neatly arranged into small heaps and fragments of wood. She took that trash and left my apartment for good. The axe was promoted to a therapy instrument.