The museum for broken relationships leaves visitors feeling 'all types of emotion'

Museums are home to some of the world's most historical treasures from the Rosetta Stone, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Tutankhamun. But now, one internationally acclaimed museum is turning heads for sharing symbolic items from broken relationships.

The Museum of Broken Relationships (MoBR) resides in Zagreb, Croatia, and hosts over 3,000 objects and anonymous stories to create the ultimate shrine to the loss of love.

Opening its doors in 2006, the MoBR started as an art installation inspired by the break-up of its creators. It has since been hosted in 62 cities around the world including Paris, London, San Francisco, Berlin, Singapore, Taipei and more recently Mexico City, Tokyo, Shanghai, Toronto, and Melbourne.

The unique museum houses donated items from across the world including toasters, toy piggies and belly button lint – all the way to harrowing, heartbreaking stories.

MoBR collection "taps the part of human life, which inevitably raises curiosity and voyeuristic interest," a spokesperson said. "At the same time, the collection is treated with care and dignity and presented in a visually appealing manner."

"It is displayed in a way that stimulates the visitors’ catharsis, and nurtures compassion and fascination by the most sacred and most coveted part of human experience, which is love."

Contrary to the suggestive title, the museum is said to be full of hope, life, resilience and inspiration, elegantly captured and embodied by its collection that every human being can identify with.

Visit the Museum of Broken Relationshipswww.youtube.com

Now, with its ever-growing collection, there are several unusual additions, including a 27-year-old wound crust with a personal story behind it.

"In 1990 my friend, my first great love, had a motorbike accident and its consequence was severe road rash with several large crusts," one person shared.

Despite "nothing serious" happening, they lived with the "constant fear" that they would lose someone close to them.

"For that reason, I kept one of his crusts as it fell off, with the (not so serious) idea that in case of need, I could have him cloned."

Museum of Broken Relationships

Another donator gave their ex's belly button lint. Yep, you heard that right.

They explained that their former love had a "particular arrangement of body hair that made his belly button prone to collecting it."

"I put the lint in a small baggie and concealed it away in the drawer of my bedside table," they said in a confession to the museum. "Our relationship was tumultuous; as off-again as it was ever on. From time to time, he would remind me that he wasn't really in love, but I blithely ignored the warning. He gave me his lint, after all."

Museum of Broken Relationships

While there may be some odd finds in the MoBR, some of the stories left visitors feeling a whirlwind of emotions from laughing out loud to tears and "thinking of past relationships with family, friends and lovers."

A donated teddy bear from Singapore told a story of a teenage love between a Chinese girl and a Malay boy which was not approved by family and society.

Numerous exhibits from Manila, as banal as a daily newspaper or a film poster witness how strongly immigration for economic reasons can break love, even wedding vows.

In San Francisco, a small deer made of bamboo told a moving story about the tragic loss of a loved person who suffered from PTSD syndrome after returning from Iraq.

Numerous stories from Zagreb or Sarajevo were often marked by a painful and tragic dissolution of the country in the war in ex-Yugoslavia.

As the collection has grown, the MoBR display prompts people to consider how culture and history play a role in human experience and how such a display can help promote peoples' interest in and respect for cultures besides their own.

You can find out more about MoBR here.

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.