Asylum Suitcases, Found And Photographed - From NPR

"Photographer Jon Crispin has a fascination with things that are left behind. In the '80s he was basically given free rein to document abandoned asylums in New York state. Crispin's latest fascination is with old suitcases — discovered by the New York State Museum in an attic of the Willard Psychiatric Center in Willard, N.Y."

"The cases were put into storage when their owners were admitted to Willard sometime between 1910 and the 1960s," Crispin explains on a Kickstarter page, where he is raising funds to continue photographing. "And since the facility was set up to help people with chronic mental illness, these folks never left."

"I try to make them look as beautiful as they are," he says. "And they're touching too. My goal as a photographer is to have people react." The suitcases contain letters that were never mailed, diaphanous cigarette papers, a glass bottle of glycerin left behind by a craftswoman — tiny parts of a forgotten whole."

See more photos here (Link)