Our next [murmur] audio documentary project is taking us out of the “true” public spaces of our streets, laneways and parks and into the “sort-of” public space that is the University of Toronto’s Hart House. We haven’t done an interior project yet, so this is a bit of an experiment for us. Hart House was built between 1911 and 1919, a gift to the University from the Massey family and was based on buildings at Oxford and Cambridge in England. The architecture screams “I Am Important” (just look at that picture!) but not being a U of T alumni (or Torontonian by birth), I don’t have much of an idea as to why people are attached to this building — I’m always aware, when I’m there, that this place is special — I just need to hear the stories for that mythology to come alive.
The folks at the Hart House Art Committee will be doing recordings over the next couple of weeks. If you’ve got a memory or story you would like to share, please email murmur@harthouse.utoronto.ca, be it personal and anecdotal, 50 year old gossip, or some historic event you could tell the rest of us about. Remember, there are no small stories, only small mobile phones.
