<div><strong>South Korean island of Jeju, known as the island of love, will host a different tribute to love as Museum of Broken Relationships exhibition sets sail on May 5th, 2016. </strong><br><br>And it's big in every way: the exhibition will last for more than 4 months, extends through 4 floors of the <a href="http://www.arariomuseum.org/exhibition/#/dongmun-motel2.php">Arario Museum</a> and features 113 items from all over the world. Sixty-seven of the donated items are from South Korea, along with the largest item ever contributed to Brokenships collection - a real, life size jeep!&nbsp;<br><br>The exhibition will remain opened to October 23rd, 2016.</div>

Loveships have conquered Jeju Island

Credo sarà terapeutico scriverne. 
Ci passammo da li, dal vostro museo circa 4 anni fa. Durante un interrail nell est europa. Già si scherzava su quale poteva essere l' oggetto che avrebbe simboleggiato la nostra storia una volta che l'avremmo interrotta. Ricordo che non era tanto un ipotesi, noi lo si sapeva dall'inizio. Dal 24 novembre 2019, quando scattammo la nostra prima polaroid, si sapeva senza saperlo che era tutto troppo bello per durare. Come un fuoco d'artificio, o una lanterna infuocata. Il desiderio di trattenere quella bellezza non poteva cambiare la  natura del nostro incrociarsi, il suo scopo era quella di volare e farsi sempre più lontano fino a esplodere o scomparire. La risposta al nostro quesito ci attendeva alla fine della nostra traversata sul traghetto che da Spalato ci stava riportando in Italia, ad Ancona. Per immortalare con una polaroid l'arrivo, piazzammo l aggeggio su una colonnina di pietra. L'instabilità della macchina era palese ma compensammo puntellando di fiducia i primi tremolii e provammo a far partire l'autoscatto volendo immortalare la scritta bianca "ANCONA MARITTIMA" su sfondo BLU, classico. La fiducia non compensò a sufficenza e il tempo di allontanare il passo e metterci in posa l'uno di fianco all altra e BUM. Polaroid gialla su sfondo color asfalto, due tastini saltati, supposte crepature su obiettivo e corpo della macchina. Non so come ma la foto venne comunque, la polaroid si congedò con i massimi onori in quell ultimo scatto. Con la foto in mano, ci guardammo. Era chiaro. Quello sarebbe stato il cimelio perfetto da consegnare al vostro museo nel momento in cui avremmo interrotto la relazione. Cosi due mesi dopo ci lasciammo, male. Poi due mesi dopo ci reincontrammo, bene. E tre anni dopo, ovvero a novembre del 2025, ci salutammo di nuovo ma definitivamente. Come faccio a dirlo? Beh, avevamo smesso gradualmente di fare polaroid, nonostante avessimo una macchinetta nuova. Avevamo smesso di provare a compensare con la fiducia la continua instabilità. Avevamo smesso di amarci in quanto coppia e abbiamo iniziato ad amare l'altro come persona, come essere a se stante. Ormai distante. Mentre scrivo stiamo svuotando casa, mancano poche settimane e ognuno abiterà altrove, lontano. È sarà sempre più normale non chiedersi e non sapere. Quel che probabilmente resterà saranno le miriadi di polaroid  ben sigillate in scatole di Vans, dedite a contenerle insieme al resto dei ricordi. E ogni tanto salteranno fuori, per ricordarci che la felicità si incastona perfettamente in un rettangolino verticale. E in quella cornice, è lì, per sempre.

Allegato: Polaroid gialla/(inter)rotta

He told me he didn't want kids but on the morning of my birthday I heard him on the phone stressing that I didn't want 'house & kids'. I confronted him and he admitted he had been hoping I would change my mind when we moved in together. So it ended.

No kids please

"Shut up kiss me hold me tight"

I needed Angel Olsen’s help with our first kiss.

The night before our date I couldn’t sleep. I tried to come up with ways to feel more at ease, yet also in control, during our time together. And then it hit me – obviously, I should create a playlist. This way, we would have no choice but to synchronize ourselves to the songs I selected so carefully. It might sound manipulative (and it might have been), but it made perfect sense. After all, music has always been our shared language. Even in the ten years preceding our renewed encounter on Bumble, Yuval and I would occasionally send each other songs we thought the other would like. Going through our correspondence over those years, I stumble upon artists like Bill Callahan, Susanne Sundfør, and Devendra Banhart. Turns out, that was just our warm-up act.

My plan proved successful. We were sitting on my balcony – me in the armchair and him on the couch across from me, but by the time Angel Olsen’s song started playing, we were already tipsy, sitting side by side on the couch. He laughed and willingly followed her instructions.

As we grew closer, I discovered more layers in Yuval and in his Spotify library. While I leaned towards melancholic singer-songwriters, his musical tastes ranged from rap and pop to Portuguese music and beyond. It reflected the differences between us: Yuval was more open to new experiences and people than I was. It was easy for him to find beauty in everything his senses could grasp. It took some adjusting for me, but I was grateful for the new, vibrant pace he brought into my life. He opened my heart, as well as my ears.

Besides that, we were on the same page when it came to the essentials – our desert island albums. He introduced me to Beach House’s enchanting melodies long before we were a couple, and I finally managed to cast the Sharon Van Etten spell on him. It worked out well, because soon enough we indeed found ourselves on some sort of desert island.

Six months into our relationship, the pandemic struck. My flatmate moved back to her childhood home and Yuval moved in with me, just until life returned to normal. I feel like I need to apologize for saying this, but that time provided some of my happiest moments. We were still in our falling-in-love phase, so this tiny bubble of just us two was all we really wanted. We prepared fancy meals, made out spontaneously in the middle of the work day, mixed cocktails and drank them on the building’s rooftop, and wrapped up every day on my balcony, with a small speaker, playing songs for each other. One of these evenings Yuval played “Original Sun on a Grand Piano” by Nina Kinert. It was clear right away that this song had climbed to our top-five list of songs we could no longer casually listen to, since it would always demand our full attention. If our relationship were a music box, this is what would be playing in it.

When the pandemic subsided, our relationship continued according to the expected timeline: We moved in together to a cozy apartment with a balcony; we adopted a puppy, a mix of Labrador and Tasmanian devil, and named her Nina; we talked about the future in the first-person plural; and we joined Spotify’s Duo plan, our equivalent of a joint bank account.

After nearly two years together, Yuval proposed. He created a playlist for the event and called it “pop” (get it?). Even though we had discussed this next step, I still found it hard to believe that this good thing, which always happens to others, was now happening to me. And with the sweetest, funniest person. I agreed, of course.

Just weeks later, Yuval’s father was hospitalized. He had an infection in his heart and needed surgery. He was optimistic, and so were we. And when he came out of surgery, the doctors were too. But then complications arose, and he was intubated and sedated shortly after waking up. Exactly one month after the marriage proposal, Yuval's father passed away.

On the night we were called to the hospital, I went in with Yuval to see his father. He wasn't dead yet, but he wasn't alive either. I said my goodbye and held Yuval tight. Later, we sat with his family in the waiting room, helplessly waiting for his departure. As dawn approached, our conversation centered on the funeral and the long day ahead. My mind drifted further, imagining what the upcoming months would be like. It was a long night and we got through it together, I reassured myself. We were already a family. We would handle what comes next.

But – and I can only say this in hindsight – the moment Yuval’s father's heart stopped beating, our playlist began to falter.

It didn’t happen right after his passing; perhaps the post-mortem bureaucracies and the distractions offered by loved ones slightly delayed the mourning. But after a few months, just when life seemed to settle into a new normal, Yuval's presence quietly receded.

First, his sentences became shorter. He didn't want to talk about his day when he got home from work, and he didn't have the strength or the will to ask about mine. With his friends he stepped forward and came back to life, and with his family he stepped back to make more room for them. I found solace in the fact that, at least with me, he allowed himself to fall apart.

Then the future tense disappeared. After more than six months of not discussing our future plans, we did a little writing exercise suggested by a friend of his. We each wrote about our ideal wedding. I went first; I talked about the location (a small café in a nature-ish area), the time (Friday noon), the menu (street food), the officiant (his aunt), and the music (we will be considerate, but there will be some songs just for us). At his turn, he said, “I can't imagine a happy event right now”.

Seeing the weight he carried, my instinct was to be as low-maintenance as possible, so he could comfortably lean on me. I built an altar for his silence, like Laura Gibson Sings – I didn’t complain about work, offered him ways out of events with my friends or family, and set our future plans aside.

Looking back, one of my early red flags was that songs about breakups or broken hearts made me uncomfortable. Once, during a car ride together, "It's Too Late" by Carole King came on the radio. I remember hoping Yuval wouldn't listen to the lyrics, because if he did and thought the same thing as me, what would that say about us?

And yet I stayed. I wanted to believe that his therapy would help, that the three-week trip he took to visit a friend in Canada would help, that all the funny notes I wrote him at night to make him smile in the morning would make a difference. But most of all, I stayed because I loved him, and I thought that if I was good enough, I would remind him that he loved me back.

A year and a half after his father’s death, on a typical Wednesday, I went to see my therapist. Although I'd been seeing her for years, it was the first time I walked into the room and sensed she had something to say. I told her we'd started searching for a new place, thinking we could benefit from a change of scenery. She replied, “I wouldn’t sign a contract with him at the moment”, and in her sad, sorrowful eyes, I saw how exhausted and lonely I was. In my constant struggle to save us, I ultimately lost myself.

That evening, I told Yuval I love him but I couldn’t wait any longer. And if he doesn't know what he wants, then for me it's a “no”.

It was our last night together. In the following month we took turns sleeping in the apartment and met once a week to talk. We concluded our relationship much like ending therapy: slowly and without the ability to tie up all the loose ends.

Eventually, I moved back to my parents' house with Nina. Yuval and I stopped talking, and I went the extra mile by unfollowing him on social media. Our last communication channel was Spotify. I could still see the songs he was listening to, and I tried to gauge his feelings based on them. Whenever he listened to Sharon Van Etten, Angel Olsen, or Nina Kinert, I assumed he was thinking about me. This gave me some comfort. But it didn't end there. I speculated when he was hanging out with his friends (Khruangbin, Zero 7), taking a shower (Beach House, The Weeknd), or having sex (Rhye, Air, Cigarettes After Sex). It was painful; songs had become the only indication of what the person closest to me was experiencing. Then again, considering our history, maybe it was appropriate.

Every once in a while, he would add songs to our playlist – the one he cultivated from our early days together. When that happened, I was angry at him for somehow communicating with me, and angry at myself for allowing it to affect me ("Some Things Last a Long Time"? You want to shatter me completely?). A friend asked if I could delete this playlist, but I told her it would be like burning every birthday card or note he ever wrote me; it encapsulates our entire relationship. Yet, I knew it wasn't healthy to fixate on it. Days went by, and even if he thought of me when he listened to one of our songs, he continued not to fight for us.

For easy access to a good cry, I created my own Broken Heart playlist. It was hard to listen to our songs at first, but over time I realized I wasn't ready to give them up. Therefore, I embarked on the mission of reclaiming: We used to sing "Fast Slow Disco" enthusiastically along with St. Vincent in the car; those days, I preferred the piano version (He did leave me dancing with a ghost). "PPP" by Beach House, whose guitar riff mesmerized us, now seemed almost prophetic. And at the end of the day, even in "Original Sun on a Grand Piano," the tides are stronger than the lovers.

After a few months, I moved with Nina into my own apartment. I felt much stronger – mentally as well as physically (apparently, suffering from Pilates overshadows suffering from heartbreak). I invested in friendships I'd neglected and even signed up to some dating apps. That being said, Yuval continued to occupy a variable percentage of my mind; I just got better at multitasking with it.

About six months after the breakup, I took a solo trip to Paris. The formal reason was to attend concerts by two key contributors to my Broken Heart playlist – Boygenius and Angel Olsen. The real reason was to prove to myself that I could enjoy being alone, that I was good enough on my own. I imagined this trip as my closest chance for closure.

Unfortunately, one can be heartbroken even in Paris. Whether I was in the metro, at Place des Vosges, or at Shakespeare and Company, Yuval's shadow always followed.

Then, during the Boygenius concert, my relationship with Yuval's absence changed. Before “Letter to an Old Poet”, Phoebe Bridgers asked the audience to put their phones away. She sang, and I wept like nobody was watching. There would be no symbolic closure. My emotional baggage, an overweight of heartache and longing, would come back home with me. But I accepted it, because it's better to feel fully than to not feel at all. And for the first time, I believed that one day, I would feel differently.

I wanna be happy, I’m ready

To walk into my room without looking for you

I’ll go up to the top of our building

And remember my dog when I see the full moon

I can’t feel it yet

But I am waiting

Allegato: Polaroid gialla/(inter)rotta

No kids please

My relationship as an indie playlist