Meaning from Juxtaposition: A Conversation with Photographer Jon Crispin about the Willard Asylum Suitcases
Issue: Vol 3 No. 1 (2016)
Journal: Journal of Contemporary Archaeology
Subject Areas: Archaeology
Abstract:
An interview and accompanying photographic essay around Jon Crispin's photographs of a collection of abandoned suitcases found at a now-closed psychiatric center at Willard, in upstate New York. Many held the possessions of former patients and ranged in date from the turn of the 20th century into the late 1960s. The suitcases have now been accessioned to the permanent collection of the New York State Museum in Albany, NY.
Author: Jon Crispin, Zoë Crossland
References :
Dwyer, E. 1987. Homes for the Mad: Life Inside Two Nineteenth-century Asylums. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Pamuk, O. 2012. The Innocence of Objects. Istanbul: The Museum of Innocence / New York: Harry N Abrams.
Penney, D. and P. Stastny. 2008. The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from A State Hospital Attic. New York: Bellevue Literary Press.
Stewart, K. 2007. Ordinary Affects. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/9780822390404
Jon Crispin’s Willard Suitcases site
http://www.willardsuitcases.com
Jon Crispin’s 2011 Kickstarter campaign
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/265363123/willard-asylum-suitcase-documentation
Jon Crispin’s 2014 Kickstarter campaign
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/265363123/willard-suitcases-unpacking-the-rest
The Willard Cemetery Memorial Project: working to document and commemorate those buried in Willard Cemetery
http://www.willardcemeterymemorialproject.com
NY State Museum Exhibit “The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic”
http:// www.suitcaseexhibit.org/indexhasflash.html
The Inmates of Willard 1870–1900. A genealogy resource for Willard, by Lin Stuhler
http://www.inmatesofwillard.com