A History Of Love Gone Wrong, All In One Croatian Museum
I confess I'm not much of a museum tourist. On a recent visit to Croatia's capital, Zagreb, I strolled past three museums without feeling any urge to step inside. Then I came across one I just couldn't ignore: the Museum of Broken Relationships.
"It's a collection of objects donated by people who have broken up," says Drazen Grubisic, a co-owner of the museum. "Each item has an accompanying story."
Some are amusing, others sarcastic and a few are just plain heartbreaking.
The idea came out of his breakup with Olinka Vistica, who is the museum's other co-founder. As they were splitting up, they couldn't decide who should take possession of a toy bunny they shared.
"This was kind of a joke that we had," says Grubisic. "If someone was going away [on a trip] and the other one was staying, you would take the bunny and take photos of bunny in all the places where usually you would take photos of your girlfriend or your boyfriend."
So, they decided, why not create an art project to display the bunny?
An Instant Success
They reached out to friends who donated items that were symbolic of their broken relationships. The initial, temporary display in 2006 was such a success that they traveled the world doing exhibitions.
In 2010, they set up the permanent museum in Zagreb. Now, they get more than 40,000 visitors a year at the only privately funded museum in the city.
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