In 2002, when I was still young and innocent, I spent November and December in Vancouver, Canada, to improve my English so I could subsequently study a semester at a university in New Zealand. Three weeks before I left, a girl from Brazil arrived and... I really fell in love for the first time in my life. It was complicated: I was confused, she had a boyfriend in Brazil... Nonetheless, she was the sincerest and the most naturally warm-hearted girl I had ever met. 

I returned to Switzerland heartbroken. I was devastated. Being Swiss, I liked watches and so, in addition to the watch on my left wrist showing local (Swiss) time, I put another watch on my right wrist showing her time. Even though I was constantly thinking of her (she had returned to Brazil), I stuck to my plan and went to New Zealand for six months. 

When I came back, I had gotten used to wearing two watches and kept doing so. I was always wearing them – when swimming, sleeping, pretty much all the time except when going through security checks. Now, whenever I travelled, I had both Swiss and the local time on my watches. It became a reminder that people in various places in the world had also taken a place in my heart.

One day the watch broke down. I took it off but couldn’t fall asleep that night, so I put it back on again and fell asleep. Hence, I kept wearing the broken watch and it slowly continued to disintegrate. Water got into it; sand got into it; scratches accumulated on the glass until it cracked and started falling out bit by bit; the face plate followed suit; the inner parts eroded... The left wrist remained exact Swiss time; the right wrist showed the slow changes in life.

My friends didn’t like the watch and would tell me to take it off or joke that one day they would hack off my hand and throw it out the window along with the watch. The poor guys had to listen to the story of the watch whenever we met new people who curiously noticed it. Some could tell the story so well themselves that people got confused whether it had happened to them (telling the story) or me (wearing the watch). Girls I met would also learn the story. Some were intrigued, others weren’t amused. I kept wearing it anyway. It had grown on me.

I visited the Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb twice in the last two years and really liked it. However, I found a lot of the stories rather sad (naturally, one would think). So, I thought I’d send you this watch that has now accompanied me for 15 years as a sign that even when a love story ends, we can continue to draw happiness and beautiful memories from it and give it new meaning over time. 
 
What became of the Brazilian girl it all started with? She is living happily in Brazil. I met her when I travelled there in 2013, and we write to one another from time to time. I still think she is an amazing person and I’m happy that our paths had crossed in 2002. 

Watch

<div>The cycle of small-format exhibitions of contemporary artists who left their home countries for various reasons, Goodbye / Auf Wiedersehn, continues on December 19th with a work by the Russian artist and dissident Anna Jermolaewa, created in collaboration with Ukrainian ballerina and choreographer, Serheieva.<br><br>While Tchaikovsky's ballets dominate winter festive theatre scenes around the world, this is about the swan song of a regime whose decline we hope for.<br><br>Anna openly and publicly speaks out against the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Putin's totalitarian regime and continuously assists Ukrainian refugees in Austria. With the Rehearsal for Swan Lake, she represented Austria at the 2024 Venice Biennale.</div><div><br></div>

Rehearsal for Swan Lake

<div><strong>A Multi-Sensory Collaboration with Bish Kush<br></strong><br></div><div><br>From December 12, 2025, at the Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb we will be presenting a new multisensory installation created with Bish Kush, the artist duo from Japan.<br><br></div><div>A bespoke scent crafted by the artists entirely of natural essential oils, will gently accompany visitors through the museum, leading them towards the central installation. The visitors are invited to engage with the installation and let go of their past leaving just a scent as a memory behind. The artists’ idea resonates deeply with the museum’s mission and echoes the ancient spiritual rituals used to purify space, calm the mind, and dispel negative energy.</div><div><br>The fragrant installation will remain on site until January 12, 2026.&nbsp;<br><br></div><div><br><br></div><div><br><br></div><div><br><br></div>

Remember deeply, let go slowly.

He asked me to choose one of the chair models when he showed me around in his enterprise on a lazy Sunday. We were deeply in love, strolling around the empty building, smoking  cigarettes in the terrace and it felt like everything had fallen into the right place finally.It was a perfect dream. He wrote love poems for me and promised me the world. Then one day, right after a ridiculous intimate and perfect holiday he sent me a Whatsapp telling me that he couldn't imagine a future with me, has met another woman and that I  had to let him go. My world shattered into pieces, only the little chair stayed firm.  He moved on and I couldn't go back to the woman anymore that I had been before I met him. I collected  the broken  parts and designed a new person, stable and firm like the little chair. Some pieces I couldn't find anymore, maybe he took them with him. But it doesn't matter, I don't need these anymore. 

Shattered pieces