Hello Stranger is a game to turn players into outsiders within their everyday environments. By employing estrangement devices and aspects of play theory, it uses “question-making” as a strategy to recalibrate how players report the overfamiliar and immediate. Played with members of staff at the V&A Museum of Childhood, it was devised as a tool to sense the museum anew, with critical reflection upon the experiences it offers and the qualities it values at a time of re-evaluation and redevelopment.

The key themes that form the basis for the questions were identified over a three-month period of observations and conversations with staff across departments and visiting members of the public. Chance had allowed the varied theme cards to be distributed indiscriminately, from security and collections to the director and operations, while anonymity of responses momentarily dissolved hierarchies of power, leaving behind the multiple opinions and ideas that form the questions in this internal document.

However large or small, these compelling personal insights demand consideration and debate, if not action.