See artifacts of past patients at Cayuga Museum

AUBURN - Traveling suitcases unlock compelling histories of lives lost, challenging society's views of mental health and human rights.

“The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic,” a patient-centered view of the history of mental health, will be on display at the Cayuga Museum of History and Art from Feb. 23 through April 20.

Options for Independence, the Peer Networking Group of CNY, and the museum bring this traveling exhibit of psychiatric patients' artifacts here. Patients who lived at the Willard Psychiatric Center in Romulus, NY, from 1869 to 1995 left their suitcases behind. The patients brought these trunks with them when they arrived, but they weren't allowed to keep them in their rooms. The contents, therefore, reflect their lives prior to being hospitalized.