Armastusega Eestisse
To Estonia, With Love
An Intergenerational Travelogue
Kahe põlvkonna reisikiri
Created by Camille and Marina Intson
Spring 2025 Exhibition, VEMU Estonian Museum of Canada
23 March - 7 June 2025
"...What was initially a small project intended only for the family's use became a large and comprehensive research project and exhibition that also tells the story of Estonian history in general, and in which Marina and Camille have included the fate of their extended family – the Haljaste and Rammo families."
"The exhibition at Tartu College features large-format photographs by Camille Intson and very exciting collage artworks using various materials by Marina. These stories presented in the exhibition through various displays are not just the story of one family through three generations, but also help to understand more broadly how important it is to notice the past in the present so that our history and culture endure. Even far from our homeland."
- Paul Kilaspea, Eesti Elu (English translation)
VEMU Estonian Museum of Canada - Spring Exhibition
23 March 2025 *EXTENDED TO* to 7 June 2025
Curated by Camille Intson
Visual works by Marina and Camille Intson
Primary fonds from Helen Rammo (Haljaste)
Additional fonds from Ivar Rammo and Inge Haussler (Intson)
"Armastusega Eestisse: Kahe põlvkonna reisikiri" / "To Estonia, With Love: An Integenerational Travelogue" is the story of three generations of Estonian-Canadian women—Helen Rammo (née Haljaste), Marina Intson (née Rammo), and Camille Intson—tracing their ancestors' footsteps from Estonia to Canada and back again in the aftermath of the 1940-1991 Soviet occupation.
This exhibit begins with the personal archive and records of Helen Rammo (Haljaste), the daughter of a decorated Estonian colonel, born in 1921 in Nõmme before escaping Estonia in 1942 and resettling permanently in Canada in 1949. Following her death in 2013, Helen’s daughter and granddaughter Marina and Camille found themselves in possession of boxes of photographs, scrapbooks, documents, and other priceless ephemera from the interwar period in Estonia onward. In the decade following, they would return to these records as a guide and road map to piece together forgotten parts of family history, hoping to one day visit each of the places meticulously documented in Helen’s scrapbooks. In the summer of 2024, this dream was finally realized as Marina and Camille visited Estonia for the first time to embark on a cross-country road trip, retracing their family’s movements and re-creating Helen’s old photographs from the archive.
The first section of this exhibit documents Marina and Camille’s road trip through Estonia, reflecting on the familial research and documentation processes that bridge Helen’s archive with the present day. The second section features mixed media collages and photographs created by mother and daughter, giving viewers added insight into the process of archival interpretation and into the resilient intergenerational maternal bond at the backbone of this project. In collaboration with VEMU Estonian Museum of Canada, this project emphasizes the gendered labour of memory work and the importance of intergenerational connection and communication to the Estonian-Canadian diaspora.