The Museum of Broken Relationships

The Museum of Broken Relationships was established to collect donations of the personal belongings left over after a relationship ends. It began as a touring exhibition, and now also has a permanent facility in Zagreb, Croatia.

Something about the concept just grabs my heart and squeezes it. Anyone who has lost a serious relationship, for whatever reason, can probably relate to the burden of dealing with all the physical remnants, things that have no significance or value to anyone else but whose meaning is too specific and painful to keep them around once the relationship is gone. On a personal level, to know that there is some place that would accept this detritus - some place other than Goodwill or the dump - gave me a strange sense of relief, even though I don't think I have anything to donate to the museum, or any intention to do so even if I did.

I think the museum's "About" page on their website puts it well: "the Museum offers a chance to overcome an emotional collapse through creation: by contributing to the Museum's collection." It offers a ritual of closure, one that, they point out, is lacking in our culture even though we have other ceremonies to mark life's transitions. And it makes a museum the space for and focus of that ritual.

The Museum of Broken Relationships presents an interesting idea of what museums are, or can be. In a way it's a shrine: none of these objects, no matter how utilitarian, will ever be used for their original purpose again. It's a place to commemorate something that has ended, some frozen and irrevocably passed moment symbolized by the things on display. It also is a place to move forward, both for the people who send in their objects and for the people who visit.

And it seems very, almost painfully, human. The inspiration for the museum was the founders' own broken relationship, and of course its collection depends on the interest and participation of other regular people. It sounds like some of the donated objects were created intentionally as art, but nevertheless, everything, no matter how mundane or creative, shares a common theme - one that almost everyone can relate to.

In my imaginary museum, I would love to create exhibitions like this, drawing together art and cultural artifacts and personal stories and history to reflect a theme of the human experience.

The Art of Video Games

The Smithsonian American Art Museum is doing two awesome things with their upcoming show, The Art of Video Games, which opens in March 2012. First of all, they're doing a 6-month exhibition on video games, treating them as "a compelling and influential form of narrative art" - which I wholeheartedly agree with, and I'm excited that the Smithsonian is recognizing them as such. Secondly, they're taking the idea of participatory, crowd-sourced exhibitions to heart by letting us vote on which games will be included.

It makes sense. There is not really a canon, in a scholarly sense, of video games, so letting the public vote is a good way of putting some curatorial authority in the hands of experts who feel strongly about the subject - gamers. The 240 possible choices were selected by the curator, Chris Melissinos, along with an advisory group and the museum, but the 80 games featured in the show will depend on the outcome of the online voting. This not only builds anticipation among people who voted (I, personally, can't wait to see if my choices make it into the show), it will also lend legitimacy to the exhibition in the eyes of visitors whether or not they voted. Gaming is one of those pop culture topics where, I'd imagine, we are much more likely to trust the opinions of "normal people" than museum curators.

I do wonder whether the voting process is basically just a popularity contest. The website reminds visitors that "this is an art exhibition, so be sure to vote for games that you think are visually spectacular or boast innovative design," but I'll admit to looking for the games I loved and voting for them for the sake of nostalgia more than for their aesthetic characteristics. On the other hand, when it comes to video games, I think "visually spectacular" and "innovative" tends to translate pretty closely into "I LOVED THAT GAME." Popularity probably is a decent measure of a game's artistic and narrative significance.

It will be interesting to see if the Smithsonian takes this approach again. Would they be wary of putting something more "scholarly" in the hands of the public, and would that even be appropriate? It might not be something visitors would want to go see, even if they might have been interested in voting.