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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2016
Everyday items emit heartache at broken-relationships museum
An outpouring of support on
social media gave her further
confidence to use the experi-
ence as fodder during storytell-
ing performances in which she
discusses body image and stan-
dards of beauty.
Vermeulen said the dona-
tion, now displayed in a glass
case in the LA museum’s main
room, symbolized the final
chapter of the relationship, and
her scars “mark a story and a
time in my life that taught me
a lot about myself.”
By CHRISTOPHER
WEBER
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — After
her husband asked for a
divorce, Amber Clisura gave
back her engagement ring,
kicked him out of the house
and tossed everything that
reminded her of the ruined mar-
riage. Except for one item: a
polished steel barbecue smoker
that her future ex-husband had
fashioned for her from an old
oil drum.
“It sat there on the patio
and rusted and rusted, and it
became a sad symbol of the
relationship,” Clisura said.
The four-legged smoker
had been a treasured handmade
gift, but eventually Clisura
couldn’t bear to look at it. She
considered giving it to a neigh-
bor or selling it for scrap but
then read about a call for sub-
missions at the new Los Ange-
les branch of the Museum of
Broken Relationships.
2,000 items
Touring collection
The original museum
opened in Zagreb, Croatia, in
2010 after growing out of a
touring collection that criss-
crossed Europe, Asia and the
U.S. On display in Zagreb are
artifacts from failed unions,
most of them mundane under
ordinary circumstances. A sin-
gle stiletto heel. A wine opener.
A worn old Snoopy doll.
But when isolated in a glass
case or hanging on a white wall
and accompanied by a caption,
the objects become imbued
with heartache or regret. Or
freedom.
In Los Angeles, there’s
a blue chiffon top a woman
wore to a cafe where her hus-
band told her he was leaving.
An envelope of leaves mailed
from Canada to San Diego so a
long-distance paramour could
experience changing seasons
in Southern California. A jar
of pickles purchased for a first
love who, the donor explained,
“stopped texting before I could
give it to him.”
After some deliberation,
Clisura, a textile artist and fash-
ion designer from LA, decided
to donate the smoker and drove
it to the museum’s warehouse.
“A woman met me down-
AP Photos/Chris Carlson
Amber Clisura poses for a picture next to the meat smoker she donated to the new Museum of Broken Relationships
Wednesday in Los Angeles. The Museum of Broken Relationships displays artifacts from failed unions, most of them
mundane under ordinary circumstances. It began in Zagreb, Croatia, in 2010 and then expanded.
LEFT: An envelope of leaves mailed from Canada to San Diego so a long-distance paramour could experience chang-
ing seasons in Southern California is displayed at the Los Angeles branch of the Museum of Broken Relationships
Wednesday 2016 in Los Angeles. RIGHT: A jar of pickles purchased for a first love is displayed at the new Museum of
Broken Relationships Wednesday in Los Angeles. Museum visitors pay $18 admission.
stairs, and as I was handing it
over, I burst into tears,” Cli-
sura said, laughing now. “It felt
like a weight was lifted.” The
museum representative offered
to give her a hug.
‘Broken dreams’
Employees have embraced
their share of brokenhearted
donors eager for closure, said
director Alexis Hyde at the
museum’s location on Holly-
wood Boulevard, a thorough-
fare that, she noted, has been
called the “boulevard of bro-
ken dreams.”
Hyde has been known to
brush away her own tears as
she opens boxes containing
donations.
“It’s cathartic the way a
good, sad movie is cathartic,”
she said. “On some level, you
know this person’s moving on,
and they’ve survived.”
Hyde pointed out not all the
fizzled unions represented in
the 3,500-square-foot museum
were romantic. One donor had
an irreparable relationship with
her father. Another split from
a church. A California woman
who donated a Texas license
plate said she separated from
the Lone Star State.
“My broken relationship
was with myself,” said Andree
Vermeulen, whose donated
items are the museum’s most
talked about. The actress sent
in a pair of breast implants she
had removed after ending a
toxic relationship with a man
who made disparaging com-
ments about her body.
Vermeulen, who lives in
Los Angeles, said the implants
“never felt right,” and since
they’ve been out, she has
“reached a place where I feel
very grounded and confident.”
More than 2,000 items
comprise the museum’s two
brick-and-mortar collections
and touring shows, which have
made stops in San Francisco,
Helsinki, Finland and Ham-
burg, Germany. A show in
Seoul, South Korea, featured
a donated Jeep that had to be
taken apart and brought in by
crane. Donations arrive so reg-
ularly that the LA site hopes to
continually cycle in new items
to keep the exhibit fresh.
Donors are anonymous or
identified only by first name.
They generally write just a few
sentences as a backstory, but
some items, including a simple
green coffee mug at the LA site,
come with explanations that go
on for hundreds of words.
The caption accompanying
a group of old cassette tapes
reads: “The music made me
dream.”
Pieces are displayed across
six exhibition rooms in the
ground-floor location that lures
tourists who stroll Hollywood
Boulevard. Visitors pay $18
admission and are encouraged
to pop into a private “confes-
sional,” where they can write
about their own breakups.
Olinka Vistica and Dra-
zen Grubisic, the Croatian art-
ists who conceived the origi-
nal exhibition on a whim, are
shocked by its staying power.
Hyde isn’t. “It’s so reso-
nant,” she said. “The audience
is so large for it.”
Clisura admitted she hadn’t
yet been to the museum to see
the old rusted smoker.
“I wasn’t sure I was
ready,” she said. But she’s
since changed her mind and
is planning a trip with her new
boyfriend.
German minister wants to prohibit
names such as ‘vegetarian schnitzel’
Associated Press
BERLIN — Germany’s
agriculture minister has leapt
to the defense of meat lov-
ers, calling for a ban on names
such as “vegetarian schnitzel”
for meat-substitute products,
which he said were misleading
consumers.
Among the “wurst” offend-
ers is “vegan curry sausage,”
a meat-free take on a heavily
spiced pork dish born of post-
World War II necessity and now
considered a delicacy in Ber-
lin — though largely unknown
outside Germany.
“These terms are com-
pletely misleading and unsettle
consumers,” Agriculture Min-
ister Christian Schmidt told
Germany’s Bild daily.
“I favor them being banned
in the interest of clear con-
sumer labeling,” he was quoted
as saying.
Schmidt has already con-
tacted the European Union’s
executive branch to discuss
extending rules that govern
the use of the terms “milk”
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A ‘vegetarian Currywurst’ is presented in Bamberg, Germany.
and “cheese” to apply to meat
as well, his spokesman said
Wednesday.
“He considers names such
as vegan curry sausage and
so forth to be misleading to
consumers,” Jens Urban told
reporters. “Clarity and truth,
transparency for consumers,
those are the measures that
should apply for the label-
ing of all products, always and
forever.”
Asked whether the mea-
sures could also affect beef-
steak tomatoes, Urban said
that the ministry wasn’t aware
of any “consumer confusion”
about such products.
In the interview with Bild,
Schmidt — a member of the
conservative, Bavaria-based
Christian Social Union — also
reiterated a call for schools
to serve pork. Asked whether
it was right for them to leave
pork off the menu out of con-
sideration for Muslims, he said
that “we should not restrict the
choice for the majority of soci-
ety for reasons of ease or cost.”
He argued that growing cul-
tural diversity should lead to
more choice, not less.
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