LONDON — When Olinka Vistica and Drazen Grubisic ended their relationship four years ago, both felt anguish. But instead of wallowing in post-breakup depression, they decided to turn their pain into creativity.
The result: the Museum of Broken Relationships, which they launched last year and are now taking on tour.
The exhibition features teddy bears, letters, postcards and even an axe used by one woman to chop up her lover's furniture. All of the pieces were donated by the broken-hearted, and each features a small card explaining what the item meant to the donor.
Ms. Vistica, a film producer, and Mr. Grubisic, an artist, say the show allows people to shed the lingering grip of a lost love. Instead of destroying memories by setting a lit match to a box of letters or stomping on a left-behind wristwatch, donors can use the exhibit's website to upload photos, text messages and e-mails.
The collection ranges from the conventional - a wedding dress- to the unexpected - an axe used by one woman to chop up her lover's furniture.
When Croatian-born Ms. Vistica, 38, was thinking about what to do with her own relationship relics, she found angry websites telling her to destroy every last remnant. "We considered it emotional vandalism," she says.
In its first showcase last year, the museum displayed items that mostly came from friends and family. But the show has since accumulated more than 300 items, from Croatia, Sarajevo, Slovenia and Germany. Now headed to Macedonia after a run in Berlin, the exhibition will go to Belgrade and Sweden early next year.
Soon after Carmen Krasic broke off with her boyfriend Davor, he presented her with a birthday gift of car keys, suggesting a car was to follow.
"I explained to him that we weren't going to get back together so he left the keys," says Ms. Krasic, 27. The keys became one of the first contributions to the museum.
Mr. Grubisic, 38, donated a toy rabbit from his relationship with Ms. Vistica.
The most interesting submission, Ms. Vistica says, is a concrete dwarf a Slovenian woman threw at her ex-husband as he drove away.
"You can see the wounds of the dwarf, and even before reading the story you can know what she was going through."
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