In May 2022 I was happy to be able to present my large-format photos of the not-so-known rooms of the Toronto Estonian House. For many, they were nothing out of the ordinary, but for me and many others, they were and remained just the memories in our hearts, minds and on the photos. As of the 1st of November, 2022 the Toronto Estonian House no longer exists.
Here are the 10 other photos, which I was considering for the exhibition, but they didn’t make it to the final 10 nor they matched my idea of the exhibition. In these photos, you can still see life in the building. Though you may see no people, you can almost sense them being there, about to come up the stairs or open the doors.
The building has been fenced off, so you can see the front, but you can no longer visit the back from either side. The sad black billboard, which was in front of the building stated its name looms day and night emitting the sadness of many. If you look at the current sign close enough, you can see a line of blue in the top left corner and a line of white in the bottom right corner. So, it actually is the Estonian flag, just the sad, dark part is the biggest.
I have more photos for the last gallery of this long project. I was thinking of taking photos at the end when it was all empty, but I just couldn’t get to it mentally – it was just too much. Also, I was very tired of moving the items out of there, finding a new home, packing, recycling, etc.
Please come back at the latest n December, so I can show the rest of the photos of the Estonian House in Toronto.
