Coming Out Museum (COME) starts its pop-up exhibition tour, which takes place throughout 2025, at the Multimedia Center in Rovinj on Tuesday, February 18 at 6 pm. The first in a series of Coming Out Museum Encounters will present the collected coming out stories of the LGBTIQ+ community, thus promoting acceptance of diversity, social justice and pride by sharing personal narratives, and encouraging understanding and creating a more inclusive and open society for all.

COME was created as a result of cooperation between the association Proces and the Ethnographic Museum of Istria-Museo etnografico dell’Istria, it came to life at the end of 2023 in a virtual space,  www.come.lgbt, where the collection is continuously growing, and in 2024 with exhibitions in Pula and Rijeka. The exhibition COME was conceived with the idea to travel and visit different environments from the very beginning. In this way, the collected stories become available to a wider audience, and the collection itself and future exhibitions open up space for collecting new objects and experiences. The desire of the authors, Mario Buletić and Jan Franjul, was to present the Coming Out Museum to the local community, so that after Rovinj, the exhibition travels to Pazin, Poreč and Labin. Also, in 20205, the exhibition will be a guest at the Ethnographic Museum in Zagreb and at the Cavò Gallery in Trieste, and will be presented at a conference in Nova Gorica – European Capital of Culture in 2025.

The exhibition concept is based on presenting personal stories and objects as triggers for memories of important coming-out experiences. Experiences that are very individual and different, but that are universal. Both for LGBTIQ+ people and for all those heterosexual and cisgender. After all, the desire to be accepted is human nature.

COME reviews social norms and provides a safe space to express LGBTIQ+ identities, encouraging acceptance and reducing discrimination. It invites the audience to actively participate, to get acquainted with the lives of those who are so often ignored. It invites all LGBTIQ+ people to share their story and help us build a better society.

The cycle of exhibitions Coming Out Museum Encounters was realized with the funds of the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia and the City of Pula-Pola.