Sharing Our Stories: The Baltic Diaspora at Home in Canada
Through photos, documents, and life stories, Sharing Our Stories: The Baltic Diaspora at Home in Canada profiles the age-old story of people forced to leave their homeland due to war and political oppression and start a new life elsewhere. This exhibit is based on a series of interviews with seniors from Ontario’s Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, and Baltic German communities. Their personal “snapshot” stories shed light on what it means to be Baltic, and on the universal experiences of migration and settlement.
“Seniors are keepers of cultural history and the generation of post-war immigrants in Canada is rapidly aging. We are at a critical moment for capturing and sharing the rich cultural knowledge that this generation has to offer, ” says Petra Grantham, president of the Canadian Baltic Immigrant Aid Society.
The project partners are the Canadian Baltic Immigrant Aid Society, Estonian Studies Centre/VEMU, Lithuanian Museum Archives of Canada, and the Canadian Latvian Archive and Museum (Latvian National Federation in Canada), who are working together as a collaborative known as Baltic Canadian Imprints. The Snapshot Stories: Learning and Legacy Through Visual and Oral HIstory project is funded by the Government of Canada’s New Horizons for Seniors Program. The exhibit was designed by Uno Raamat, whose parents fled to Canada after the Second World War. The short film accompanying the exhibit was created using footage of interviews conducted during the project and compiled by Kaisa Pitsi. Kaisa graduated the Baltic Film and Media School and now works in Canada.
VIDEO – Exhibit Accompaniment