The Willard Suitcases Exhibit: A Providers-Only Viewing 3/25/23

Calling all mental health providers!

On March 25, 2023 there will be a private viewing of The Willard Suitcases Exhibit from 10am-noontime. Coffee and refreshments will be provided.

This is a photographic exhibit of suitcases that were left behind at a psychiatric hospital in upstate New York. The suitcases and their contents had been left behind when residents of the facility died, and families did not collect them. Decades later, in the mid-1990s, they were discovered in the attic as the hospital was closing, and photographer Jon Crispin later had the opportunity to photograph them. He has been touring the exhibit for many years, eliciting deep conversations about the history of mental health treatment. A more detailed story about the exhibit by NPR can be found here: Asylum Suitcases, Found and Photographed.

In its first visit to Maine, this exhibit is being displayed at Saint Albans Church in Cape Elizabeth through April 6th. When I learned of the exhibit, I reached out to the church to coordinate and organize a providers-only event to offer mental health practitioners the opportunity to view the exhibit, engage in thought-provoking conversation, and encourage some long-overdue socializing as the pandemic wanes in a profession than can already be isolating.

Refreshments will be provided, and all voluntary donations of $15 per person will go straight to the photographer to help him to continue touring the exhibit. Venmo: @Cherie-Gustafson