» Are maps racist? University of Toronto seems to think so 

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Where is the Map Room’s map? 

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A freedom-of-information request has revealed details about the decade-long absence of a piece of Ontario’s history that once hung in a room in Hart House, an arts and events venue on the University of Toronto campus.

The reason? Kings, silhouettes, white men and the mere concept of mapping are “problematic,” according to the documents and emails provided to The Toronto Sun.

One document says the map was commissioned in 1937 by a notable U of T alumnus: Vincent Massey, then Canada’s high commissioner to Britain. (He would later become governor general.)

The ornate work, by heraldic designer Alexander Scott Carter, depicts buildings on campus and notable U of T figures of the day, and contains a brief timeline. Look past the Old World flourishes and you’ll see the map is bounded by Bloor St. to the north and College St. to the south.

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The map’s most contentious feature appears to be a depiction of 17 men lining up before a monarch, possibly King George V or VI. One email quoted a panel that once stood adjacent to the map, which said the men are “well-known campus figures of the time,” and the one in front is John Strachan, the first bishop of Toronto. Above the kneeling man is an image of John Graves Simcoe, the first lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada and Toronto’s founder.

The document, which derides the Map Room as originally “a space for largely white settler men to gather and socialize,” casts the map in a different light.

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“The lands that comprised the university are laid out as if insignia, its various buildings and select people, located, almost symbolically as prized possessions, over the land. At the bottom, 17 of the founders, principals and chancellors of the university, whose names are emblazoned on either side of the map, line up to kneel before the seated figure of the British king, as if to seek his permission to manifest what has been mapped,” it says.

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In a “long overdue” move, one draft of that document says, “the map was removed, ostensibly for repair but not to return.”

The emails include drafts of an invitation to aboriginal artists for consultation sessions in spring 2023. The sessions were held in hopes of creating an alternate artwork – as the invitation puts it, “a decolonial form of mapping.”

“All the invitees to this gathering are Indigenous artists (or) arts professionals. Art Museum and Hart House staff will present to take notes and assist,” the invitation says.

Attendees were promised $600 each for three hours of work.

“You’ll note how integral settler-colonial ideas of land ownership and relations to property are to the nature of ‘mapping’ itself – Doctrine of Discovery, Columbus, and so on. … These ideas are foundational to the building of the university itself,” the invitation says.

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The emails show the idea of this alternate map – and the shelving of the Carter map – originate with John Monahan, former warden of Hart House.

In a December 2018 email, Monahan said he wants “a pre-existing map of these lands that reflects their Indigenous character,” or to have one created, to serve as the room’s “dominant map.” Only then can the original go up – on a “side wall” with a panel to address its “most problematic” elements.

One of those would be a shield at the left that features three heads in silhouette. In a 2019 email, Monahan calls them “blackamoor heads,” referring to a motif in European heraldry. 

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“It is precisely because of the presence of the three blackamoor heads … that I believe we need a didactic that acknowledges it, ‘calls it out’ as anachronistic, and recognizes that the university has been complicit in various forms of repression and oppression, up to and including slavery,” Monahan wrote.

Barbara Fischer, chief curator of the U of T Art Museum, also referred to the “blackamoor heads” as a problem in a 2024 email, referencing a 2011 controversy that saw another artwork removed from Hart House. However, that wooden shield, according to the U of T newspaper the Varsity, depicted a figure with exaggerated facial features and a headband, not the map’s blank silhouettes.

Those heads, “in addition to the colonial construction – deference to King George V, all male figures, etc. – these concerns led John (Monahan) and Sarah (Robayo Sheridan, a former Art Museum curator) to suspend the return of the map to the Map Room, and I agreed,” Fischer wrote.

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In response to questions, the U of T issued a Sun a one-sentence statement: “The A.S. Carter map was removed for conservation purposes and is currently stored with the art collection at the Art Museum, while we take the opportunity to rethink the Map Room space and mandate.”

The U of T’s freedom of information office confirmed to the Sun that the map was removed in 2015 and Indigenous artists were consulted about the map.

In the decade since its removal, complaints have been made.

Minutes from a September 2023 meeting of the Hart House board of stewards show a member expressed concern about the removal of the map, as well as a crucifix from the building’s chapel.

In June of that year, alumni discussed over email a “heated discussion with three art committee members … led by Barbara Fischer about the map.”

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In August 2023, an email – the identity of its author has been redacted – was shared by an alumnus with U of T officials, including new Hart House warden David Kim.

“I hope (Hart) House can provide a more fundamental value for students, instilling the values of our liberal intellectual heritage – stress the lowercase ‘l.’ The practical example is the current challenge our society faces in defining freedom of speech, which is necessary for freedom of thought,” the email said.

“Labels have become a shortcut for true thought in our current culture. Once something can be pigeonholed intellectually, then thought stops. That is dangerous. 

“Unfortunately, Hart House is not immune to the tendency. The case of the map’s disappearance from the Map Room is a troubling example.” 

jholmes@postmedia.com 

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