As you would imagine, the museum is dedicated to artifacts from love gone wrong. People from all over the world donate mementos and tell the stories that go along with them. Some are funny, some are heartbreaking, but all of them are fascinating. Whatever the motivation for donating personal belongings- be it sheer exhibitionism, therapeutic relief, or simple curiousity — people embraced the idea of exhibiting their emotional legacy as a sort of ritual, a solemn ceremony.
Conceptualized in Croatia in , the Museum has since toured internationally, creating an ever evolving, community built collection that challenges our ideas about heritage. Although colored by personal experience, local culture, and history, the exhibits presented here form universal patterns that bring comfort to all those who uncover them. Hopefully they can also inspire our personal search for deeper insights and strengthen our belief in something more meaningful than random suffering.
Of course, the reason everyone goes to the Museum of Broken Relationships… the stories. It is just a coin, and maybe somebody will think that this is of little value, but the truth is that to me it is everything. I will make the story short. Two years ago I had a very dear friend from Baghdad. Her mother was from Germany, and her father was from Iraq. She was always traveling between Baghdad and Berlin. One day, when we met, she gave me this coin from her other home, Germany.
I think about her all the time. I was left with this coin to remember her, to me the most valuable possession. It was , I was ten, T. We were very much in love. When I told my mother we had gone skinny dipping in the canal, I got my ears boxed and was sent to spend the rest of the school holiday with an aunt. When I was fifteen, we had more wonderful times together until he moved to Germany with his parents.
Our goodbye came with many tears and promises. We would write every week and never marry anyone else. It was and I had just stopped working in prostitution. On the second day, the dominatrix allowed me to belittle and whip a client. First I made him lick my stilettos. I wanted to whip him harder. At once we were back in He told me he had the desire to be submissive because his father had beaten him as a child.
