The Museum of Broken Relationships: Dedicated To Archiving Random Relics Of Failed Romance.

Want to donate? Yes, they'll take your ex-lover's underpants

LA is getting a museum dedicated to failed relationships
LA is getting a museum dedicated to failed relationships
(Image credit: REX FEATURES)

Want to donate? Yes, they'll take your ex-lover's underpants

One way to deal with a break-up is to listen to Adele tracks on repeat while using your former lover’s t-shirt to mop your tears.

Another way to achieve closure is to donate the emotion-loaded artifacts of your bad romance to the art world.

The Museum of Broken Relationships was set up by two Zagreb-based artists: Olinka Vištica, a film producer, and Dražen Grubišić, a sculptor. Between 1999 and 2003 these two were romantically involved, but when their four-year relationship ended they joked about starting a museum to house all the personal items that told the story of their love affair.

Around 2006 they took the idea seriously and asked everyone they knew to donate soured love tokens and other relics from their failed romances. They toured this collection internationally before housing the archive permanently in Zagreb, Croatia in 2010.

A second permanent location is now being established in LA (due to open in May) it will showcase 70 objects from the original collection and 30 new submissions from broken hearted LA-locals.

‘If you’ve wished to unburden the emotional load by erasing everything that reminds you of that painful experience by throwing it all away – don’t. Give it to us’, reads the call for submissions on the museum’s website, ‘Submit your object to the Museum and take part in the creation of collective emotional history.’

All the submissions are displayed anonymously but include a blurb explaining the significance of the item, the length of the relationship, and the location of the lovers.

Items on display in Zagreb include sick bags that became souvenirs of a long distance relationship, a thong made of sweeties and, our personal favourite: an axe that a spurned lover used to chop up all his girlfriend’s furniture when he discovered she had fallen in love with someone else.

Exes, it's time to give your former flame's toothbrush a great new home.

It's certainly a novel way of trying to heal heartbreak, and endlessly fascinating for romantic voyeurs.

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