Los Angeles Set To Open Museum Of Broken Relationships, Asking For Donations

Los Angeles is set to become the permanent home of the Museum of Broken Relationships, and the museum wants donations which reminds people of their broken hearts as soon as possible.

Most of the items, which have found a home in Los Angeles, so far, didn’t originate in Los Angeles. An early look at the exhibits through pop-up exhibits show artifacts mostly from Croatia. Croatia was the first permanent home the Museum of Broken Relationships, which was founded after being a traveling exhibit show, according to LA Weekly.

In 2006, Olinka Vištica and Dražen Grubišic first thought of the museum that would eventually find a home in Los Angeles. Olinka Vištica and Dražen Grubišic, both artists, first got the idea for the Museum of Broken Relationships after they dated each other and broke up with one another after four years.

The museum giving a home to heartbreak is set to become a permanent part of Los Angeles in late May, 2016.

Donations from Los Angeles and other areas will make up about 30 percent of the exhibits in the new permanent location. People who have had their hearts broken can possibly find new life in their old items that remind them of their long-lost loves instead of destroying them, or hiding them under beds, or in the back of closets. LAist reports that people can fill out a form to start the donation process.

Each exhibit of heartbreak is shown with a title, the duration and date of the relationship, where the relationship occurred, and the story of the relationship. If you live in Los Angeles and are afraid of embarrassing yourself, don’t worry. Your identity won’t be compromised. However, if the item you donate can specifically identify you, you might want to use caution.

The items for the exhibits can be anything, and the Los Angeles museum is accepting donations from all over the world. They are encouraging people to write their stories in their native languages to preserve the originality and “spirit” of the stories. The stories cannot identify people or be discriminatory or offensive.

Just imagine being able to part with that old sweater from an ex-boyfriend. Or maybe it was something a little more unexpected, like a lunchbox or an old filled-up wall calendar that could turn you to tears. Now it could possibly be on exhibit in Los Angeles to tell a unique story, but it also turns out to be a universal tale that so many people relate to.

Some artifacts are things that people can’t keep if they wish to move on in their lives, and others just want to share their stories. Instead of destroying the once sentimental hat, concert ticket, or whatever else the item was, giving the piece away to the museum in Los Angeles could make a person feel better about moving on and sharing their own story about loss and even redemption.

The Los Angeles Museum of Broken Relationships takes in items of all types. From old Converse sneakers, to an old, tacky apron, each piece has an original story that was tied to a relationship, a broken heart, and the courage to let it all go and to be shared with the world.

[Photo by AP Photo/Isaac Garrido]