The idea for an exhibition was unpacked from the Suitcase Project, the historical art project that started last year to tell the stories of Riverview Hospital patients.
Anna Tremere, a retired psychiatric nurse at the Coquitlam institution, had found luggage in a storage room, left by the volunteer department.
Some pieces were in bad shape but others were salvageable with their contents still intact: photos, clothing, handkerchiefs, family keepsakes.
They were personal possessions of the mentally ill who had left Riverview or died there, and whose relatives could not be found to retrieve them.
"You can't throw stuff like that away," Tremere said. "A lot of people don't see the value but it's part of someone's life. And they're important reminders of the history Riverview had."
Two of these suitcases and their belongings that Tremere collected will be on display next week at the City Centre branch of the Coquitlam Public Library as part of a significant week-long exhibition to coincide with Mental Health Awareness Week, a week first designated in 1951 by the Canadian Mental Health Association.
Hosted by the city of Coquitlam, the library, Douglas College and the Riverview Hospital Historical Society, a group Tremere formed in 1994, the exhibition will include talks from leading experts now working or studying in the field as well as artifacts from the grounds that, for more than a century, offered unparalleled mental health care amid heritage buildings, lush gardens and a world-class arboretum.
Among the objects that will be on display from May 4 to 8 include uniforms worn by doctors and nurses, a hospital bed, a psychiatrist's couch, a stretcher and an old electroconvulsive therapy machine that was used to pass electronic currents to the brain to trigger a brief seizure, with the aim of quickly reversing symptoms of certain mental illnesses.
Tremere, who will lead the program on Monday at 7 p.m. with a PowerPoint Presentation on the history of psychiatric care and Riverview Hospital, acknowledges there were some dark times at the Coquitlam institution.
Still, there were many research breakthroughs, too, and the therapeutic care the patients received helped to give them a purpose, she said, noting their work at Finnie's Garden.
As her mother was also a psychiatric nurse, Tremere grew up to know the hospital's patients and its 244 acres well. Later, as a head nurse and a case manager for the transitional housing program at Connelly, Cottonwood and Cypress lodges, she saw how the "community" of Riverview became fragmented until its eventual demise in 2012.
The closure failed those most in need, she said.
"It was too much, too fast and too little. They became lost."
The push resulted in more people on the streets, many of them young people and dealing with both mental illness and drug addictions. "People are running into difficulties with the law and they shouldn't be in jail," she said. "In our 165 years of psychiatric care, we are still dealing with the same problems but now they're magnified.
"You really have to understand the evolution to know how we got here. We've come a long way but we have more to go."
Her goal with the weeklong exhibit is to shed light and talk about how to help the one in five Canadians suffering from mental illness. Changing perceptions is necessary but difficult, she said, especially when it's easier to turn on the blinders and walk away or prescribe a pill so the stigma around mental disorders persists.
Tremere cited an example of a luncheon she recently had with friends at a restaurant, where a diner was asking the manager to eject a man because she felt he was causing a disturbance. Tremere asked the man to sit with her group. As he continuously stretched and smacked his lips and spilled a few times on his suit he explained he had Huntington's disease (a genetic disorder that affects muscle coordination and leads to mental decline) and wanted to have his last meal at a restaurant before he transferred to a care facility.
"It was his last try at being out in the world alone," she said. "He was not a problem but she was making it a problem and wanted him gone You have to be kind."
Tremere, a history buff, said the day she launches the exhibit is relevant: Crease Clinic opened its doors at Riverview on May 4, 1951, showing the public what living with mental illness was like.
For more information about the Journey in Mental Health Care: Past, Present and Future presentation, visit www.library.coquitlam.bc.ca/journey.
@jwarrenTC
WHAT'S GOING ON
May 4, 7 p.m.: Changing with the Times History of Psychiatric Care and Riverview Hospital (presenter: Anna Tremere);
May 5, 5 p.m.: Lean Into Your Discomfort: Youth Mental Health and Addiction (John Fleming);
May 5, 7 p.m.: The FORCE Society for Kids' Mental Health (Marlisse McRobie and Moira Hazlehurst, presenters);
May 6, 3 p.m.: Heads Up An Introduction to Brain Health (Vivian Tsai of the Alzheimer Society of BC);
May 6, 7 p.m.: Into the Future A Vision for Riverview (Dr. John Higenbottam);
May 7, 5 p.m.: Recreational, Occupational and Vocational Therapies in Mental Health Past and Present (Mariana Gaspar, Rosemary Ingenito, Brett Berry and Jayne Boyer of Cottonwood, Connolly and Cypress lodges);
May 7, 7 p.m.: Mental Health and the Justice System (Heidi Currie of Douglas College);
May 8, 7 p.m.: a screening of the Oscar-nominated movie Silver Linings Playbook.
