International touring exhibit reveals broken hearts

A Russian nesting doll. Bras from Singapore. A skewered dildo.
Human nature calls for forming relationships with other people — friends, family, lovers. Unfortunately, most adults have at least one romantic break-up in their past, a break that leaves behind both physical and emotional remnants. Now, the Museum of Broken Relationships, which originated in Croatia and has spread around the world, is coming to the School of Fine Arts Gallery, beginning with an opening reception Friday.
MBR co-founder Drazen Grubisic will speak at 3 p.m. Saturday at the gallery.
“I think it has a lot of different, multiple layers of appeal to a lot of different people,” Bloomington resident Lori Canada said. “We’ll get to see items from all over the world as well, so that’s exciting.”
Canada and local artist Filiz Cicek collected the artwork for the Bloomington segment, with support from radio station and media sponsor WFHB.
“We’re just really the facilitators,” Canada said. “Once it leaves Bloomington, it could go anywhere.”
When the exhibit ends June 19, the items from Bloomington will join the global collection based out of Croatia.
“It is cathartic,” Cicek said. “There is a comfort in being together with others you don’t know. All you have in common is a broken heart. I feel privileged and honored, in a way, to be in the company of all the people.”
Canada’s favorites include a stopped watch donated by a woman who stopped it the moment her ex told her he loved her for the first time.
“She had dislodged the pin. It never changed,” Canada said. “It was 11:35, I think.”
SoFA Gallery public relations liaison Megan Abajian said the interest isn’t necessarily the artifact itself — often a common, everyday item — but the story behind the object, the context of how it relates to a broken relationship. Cicek said this is what elevates the items to art.
“These ordinary objects in this certain time and place become more,” she said.
Each audience member has his or her own interpretation as well, because viewers “brings their own baggage, their own history, their own experience,” Cicek said.
Curators include artifacts from a wide variety of people and kinds of relationships.
“They have made a point to represent everyone, so it’s not just women scorned,” Abajian said.
In fact, Cicek and Canada said the majority of the Bloomington contributors have moved on from their “broken relationships,” though for some “this is maybe a first step for them,” Canada said.
“Some are about the loss of family, loss of country, best friends,” she said. “It really is like a message in a bottle.”