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Lost Cases, Recovered Lives: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic

Darby Penney, The Community Consortium, Albany, NY, and Peter Stastny, M.D., Albert Einstein College of Medicine

As Willard Psychiatric Center in rural New York closed in 1995, staff discovered hundreds of patients' suitcases in an abandoned attic. These suitcases, and the lives of some of the people who owned them, will be the subject of an exhibit at the New York State Museum in opening in January 2004. The exhibit's goal is to challenge the public's stereotypes of mental patients by depicting the lives of the suitcase owners in all their complexity and individuality. The suitcases speak to aspirations, accomplishments, community connections, and also to loss and isolation. This is audio-visual presentation includes photographs of some of the suitcases and their contents, photographs of the suitcase owners, quotations from letters and the medical records, and historical analysis.