Staging Affect: exploring Resonance and Theatricality at the Museum of Broken Relationships

This article examines the affective and spatial dynamics of the Museum of Broken Relationships (MOBR) in Zagreb, Croatia, through the conceptual lenses of resonance, theatricality, and assemblage. The MOBR curates personal objects donated by individuals to commemorate the end of intimate relationships. Through a multisensory and carefully staged exhibition design, the museum fosters emotionally charged encounters between visitors, objects, and narratives. Drawing on affect theory, critical geographies, and the ethics of care, this article explores how the MOBR becomes a space where absence is made present, and where spectators are invited to engage in a form of affective co-witnessing. The concepts of resonance and theatricality are deployed to analyse how visitors are moved—not necessarily through shared experience, but through a desire to connect, to ‘feel-with’ the stories of strangers.