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Hearing Childhood in Ottawa South
Exploring the imaginative act of listening to the sounds of childhood
We know the world by implication, as we perceive it with our bodies. […] Our world is to us as our bodies sense it. By exploration and repetition we give meaning to these sensations.
Joy Parr, Notes for a More Sensuous History of Twentieth-Century Canada, 2001
In recent years, historians have begun to turn their attention to the senses. This audio exhibit has been designed to play with our experiences of sound, which is described by Parr as a deeply interior sensation (Parr, 2001). By layering ambient noises over excerpts from a set of oral interviews I conducted with Margaret Tallmire-Montgomery in 2014, I hope to engage the listener’s imagination and to “place [them] in the narrator’s world” (McHugh, 2012).
Please select the "Introduction" tab above to begin.
Margaret with sister and friend.jpg
Margaret Tallmire-Montgomery with her sister, Nancy, and their friend, Joan, in Ottawa South. Courtesy of Margaret Tallmire-Montgomery.
Puppies, Ottawa South.jpg
Puppies in a carriage outside Margaret Tallmire-Montgomery's home in Ottawa South. Dated 1939. Courtesy of Margaret Tallmire-Montgomery.
Billings Bridge Brook.jpg
A stream that ran through Billings Bridge area where Margaret and her parents used to walk. Dated 1939. Courtesy of Margaret Tallmire-Montgomery.
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