Do you sigh when you see the apartment where you had your first threesome? Is there a park you can't pass without thinking of the dog you loved and lost? Is the city map covered with the stories of your life? Stories don't just live in our books and imaginations, they belong to the buildings and homes where they take place. Stories can haunt these places like ghosts, can bring a city's architecture to life. If walls could talk, they'd have a lot to say; a project called [murmur] has given them a voice.

Shawn Micallef, Gabe Sawhney, and James Roussel are [murmur]. They met at the Habitat New Media Lab at the Canadian Film Centre in Toronto in the summer of 2002 and started [murmur] as a way of letting Toronto's vivid oral history articulate itself. They collect real stories from real people and archive them for anyone to hear. Pedestrian with cell phones can call the phone number listed on a sign posted outside a place that has a story and hear the story that took place where they're standing, while they're standing there. And hear it told in the voice of the person who lived it. This democratic approach 'breaks down the hegemonic 'official' history of Toronto . . . and offers countless alternative histories,' says Micallef. The pilot project for [murmur] focuses on Toronto's vibrant, multiethnic Kensington Market, where craft stores and ethnic restaurants crowd together in a rich mix. 'We decided to launch the project in Kensington because it's a microcosm of Toronto: Layers of the city are visible there, from the Victorian infrastructure to the brand-new immigrant population. People are really attached to it,' explains Micallef.