Don't Be a Stranger

A permanent museum installation where two strangers pick up old rotary phones and talk to each other, live, across two museums in Gothenburg.

No.: 02
Year: 2025
Medium: Museum installation, MSc thesis
Role: Sole designer and researcher. Research, build and install, all of it.
Where: Röhsska Museum and Mölndals stadsmuseum, Gothenburg.
Worked with: Curators, a graphic designer, a communicator and a pedagogy lead across both museums.
Status: Still running, two museums

Röhsska Museum, filmed on site. The sound is faint: someone reads the instructions aloud and says a few numbers.

Pick up The problem

Pick up the phone in one museum and you are talking, right now, with a stranger standing in the other one. There is no screen and no profile to look at, only a voice, and before it the dialling and the wait to see whether anyone answers.

The Röhsska installation in the Innovation room: a small white table with the Ericofon, post-its and two stools, between two tall windows, with yellow posters on the wall. — The installation at Röhsska, between two windows in the Innovation room. Everything you see was made to be touched: tap the posters, the phone, the Rolodex and the post-its.

Everyone who used it was told, in writing and in both Swedish and English, that no call is recorded. The photographs of visitors on this page are published with their permission.

I grew up in a small village in Greece where the phone booth was how I called home, and I still have the prepaid cards I saved. The first version of this project was booths between cities. I wrote to telecom companies in Sweden and Denmark, Ericsson first. They said no, or never answered. Then I found the Ericofon, the exact phone I had in mind, already in a case at Röhsska: behind glass, where nobody could touch it.

Ericofons in several colours displayed on shelves behind glass at Röhsska, with a visitor looking in. — Ericofons behind glass at Röhsska, the exact model I'd planned to put in a booth.

We message people on the other side of the world without thinking, and reaching out has lost its weight. Museums lean the other way: much of their signage asks you to look and not touch. Before designing anything, I photographed those signs in museums in and around Gothenburg.

Four different 'do not touch' hand icons, in four different visual styles, photographed at four museums in and around Gothenburg. — 'Do not touch' icons from four museums in and around Gothenburg, each in its own style.

Two thinkers gave me words for what I had felt for years. A friend introduced me to Baudrillard’s essay during a phone call.

Press either screen to hear the author, on YouTube: McLuhan on ABC’s Monday Conference, 1977; Baudrillard interviewed by Truls Lie in Oslo, 2000. McLuhan photographed by Bernard Gotfryd, 1967 (Library of Congress, public domain). Baudrillard photographed at the European Graduate School, 2004, CC BY-SA 2.5, converted to black and white.

The question I ended up withWhat should be considered when designing an interactive museum exhibition exploring themes of meaningful telecommunication technologies?

Dial What I did

I worked on that question through research through design: build the thing, put it in front of people, and watch what they do. Below are the installation’s own instructions, reimagined to work on this website: pick up, dial a number from the card, and wait.

Don’t be a Stranger

Rotate the dial and talk to someone who might just make your day.

To make a call

1Pick up the phoneYou’ll hear the dial tone.
2Dial a number from the cardPut a finger in the hole and turn the dial all the way to the metal stop, then let go.
3And waitSome numbers connect. Any other seven digits ring out, like a call to the other museum: nobody will answer here.
4Hang upPut the phone down whenever you like.

VolumeOffLoud

The phone is on the hook.

Numbers worth dialling

1916A song about the telephoneDonga, “Pelo Telefone”, recorded 27 November 1916
1969A call to the MoonThe White House to Apollo 11, 20 July 1969
1977Hello from EarthGreetings to strangers in space, on the Voyager Golden Record

The installation’s instructions, reimagined to work on this website, with a phone book. It’s slow on purpose: the dial always runs back at its own pace. Every voice is a real recording in the public domain: 1916 Donga’s Pelo Telefone, the first samba recorded in Brazil, then 1969 and 1977 from NASA. No call is placed.

It took three stages.

01LabIxD studio, Chalmers
- Rotary dial + Bluetooth + smartphone with a SIM, since Sweden has no landlines
- Nine second-hand phones tested
6 interviews with IxD students, who annotated the instructions by hand
02FieldLindholmen campus
- Three pilot rounds in a café and two corridors
- Poster, prompts, form and instructions revised between rounds
15 feedback forms, 4 interviews, hidden observation
03ShowroomRöhsska and Mölndals stadsmuseum
- Co-designed with curators, a graphic designer and pedagogues
- Two installations, one per museum
Open since May 2025, no end date

Nov 2024Röhsska, the first museum approached, and the first to say yes
Nov 2024 – Apr 2025Looking for a second museum: emails, proposals, LinkedIn. Mostly no reply
Mid-Apr 2025Mölndal agrees, through the Röhsska curator’s contacts
May 2025Opens in both museums

Research through design in three stages, each adding realism and stakes. Below: the five months or so it took to find the second museum.

And wait Designing for nobody answering

A lot of the project was waiting, for museums to reply and for calls that might never be answered.

My first signage said talk to a stranger. Röhsska’s curators raised a concern: promising that a stranger would answer could leave visitors disappointed when nobody did. The poster line became You might connect. You might not. But the moment is yours. From there I designed for the call not happening. Voice only, with no screen and no caller ID. No AI and no recorded voices, because an answering machine would have made the silence safe.

Beside the phone sits a Rolodex of prompt cards, to read on your own or with whoever you came in with. The curators, communicators and educators co-wrote the prompts with me, in four groups: the voice and the phone, touch and the senses, innovation at Röhsska or memory and everyday life at Mölndal, and poetic provocations. Four of them, from the Rolodex at Röhsska:

Would you speak differently into this phone than into a smartphone?
What did your fingers notice when you touched the phone?
Did this feel like something you were “allowed” to do in a museum?
If this phone had a dream last night, what was it about?

Sweden has no working landline network any more, so in the lab I paired each dial with a Bluetooth adapter and a smartphone with a SIM card. You turn a dial designed in the 1950s and it places an ordinary mobile call. I tested nine second-hand phones. Most had something broken, and I did not know how to repair any of it when I started.

Then three rounds on campus, in a café and two corridors, watching who picked up and who walked past. Twenty-five people took part across the pilots.

A beige Ericsson Dialog on a green felt-covered café table, with the instruction sheet, a feedback form and a drop box. — Three rounds on the Lindholmen campus. I watched from a hidden spot and changed the material between rounds.

A red Ericofon on a blue-draped stand at the end of a wooden bench in a long, quiet corridor. — Three rounds on the Lindholmen campus. I watched from a hidden spot and changed the material between rounds.

The fifteen feedback forms leaned positive, on a five-point scale: 4.4 for feeling different from a smartphone, 4.3 for being comfortable talking to a stranger, 4.1 for prompts that sparked conversation and 4.0 for ease of use. A small sample, so a direction rather than proof.

I coded the interviews and forms with reflexive thematic analysis. Five themes came out of it, and each one changed something before the museums. The table pairs each theme with the change it led to.

AEmotional presence through analog voice
“Talking on this phone gives me a different vibe, it lets me be myself without putting too much effort.”
P4, pilot interview
So in the museumsVoice only. No screen, no caller ID, and printed prompts that support the call rather than compete with it.
BFriction and vulnerability as invitations
“The experience requires a little bit of vulnerability (not knowing what to expect, if someone will answer or not).”
P2, pilot interview
So in the museumsFix the bad sound, keep the slow dial. The long phone number stayed long on purpose.
CDefamiliarization and playfulness
“A bit strange but fun; it’s nothing I thought I would do today.”
P1, feedback form
So in the museumsExplain less. The structured form went; post-its and a guestbook asked one open question instead.
DSocial norms and spatial hesitation
“[I] would triple check if it’s OK to pick up the phone.”
P6, pre-pilot interview
So in the museumsSemi-sheltered but visible spots, signage that says the phone is for use, and a few post-its up before opening.
EMaterial memory and nostalgia
“It feels the same as listening to vinyl; it’s more complex, takes more time, takes away the easiness, the experience becomes a thing of itself.”
P2, pre-pilot interview
So in the museumsOriginal phones, a vintage box from Mölndal’s collection, and laminated cards on a Rolodex you turn by hand.

Five themes from a reflexive thematic analysis of the interviews and forms, and what each one changed.

Even the instructions were tested. Interaction design students annotated my leaflet by hand, and the version that went into the museums had a step mine had missed.

Version 0.2 of the instruction leaflet: how to make a call in four numbered steps, and how to answer one, with three small illustrations. — The instruction leaflet, before and after the pre-pilot interviews. Swipe for the next version.

The same leaflet covered in handwritten student notes: questions about the word handset, requests to shorten, and a missing instruction to wait. — The instruction leaflet, before and after the pre-pilot interviews. Swipe for the next version.

I approached Röhsska first, in November 2024, months before the thesis officially started, and it was also the first museum to say yes. Finding the second took about five months of emails, LinkedIn messages and tailored proposals, and most of them were never answered. My plan B was both phones in two rooms of Röhsska. What finally worked was a personal connection: Röhsska put me in touch with Mölndals stadsmuseum, and that did more than months of emails had.

LinkedInCompany A
EmailMuseum A
LinkedInCompany B
LinkedInCompany A
EmailCompany C
LinkedInCompany D
EmailMuseum B
LinkedInCompany E
EmailMuseum C
LinkedInCompany C
EmailCompany D
LinkedInCompany A
LinkedInCompany F
EmailMuseum D

First museumRöhsskaYes.

Some of the messages I sent to companies and museums in Sweden and Denmark, redrawn from my thesis without anyone’s name. Most got no reply. One early yes, from Röhsska, kept it alive.

Once, the system itself made people wait. A lapsed payment on the phone’s cellular subscription cut the service for nearly two hours during the exhibition, and the museum staff were the ones standing in front of visitors while it was down. The technicians, receptionists and guides run the installation day to day, so I wrote the setup and troubleshooting instructions for them.

Talk How it went

Still runningno end date set, in either museum

Described at Röhsska as one of the visitors' favourites, and still there.

Co-created with both museums: their staff co-wrote the prompts, and we chose the Rolodex, Mölndal's phone and each spot together.

Twenty-five people across three pilot rounds before either museum.

A visitor holding the Ericofon handset to his ear, mid-call, while two others look on at the Röhsska table. — A visitor at Röhsska, phone in hand, mid-call.

It opened in May 2025 and it is still running. Visitors arrived in groups and started by watching. Once one person wrote on a post-it, others followed. Teenagers and young adults were the most likely to pick up and dial. An older man tried it alone, then called his partner over. A group of schoolboys tried to decode how the dial worked. Plenty of calls went unanswered, especially the ones to Mölndal, and people stayed anyway, dialling, listening to the tone, turning the Rolodex.

What they left behind on the table at Röhsska:

Overhead view of the table at Röhsska covered in yellow post-its, handwritten in Swedish and English, with the pencil box and the prompt card. — The post-its at Röhsska, a few weeks in. Every note I could read with confidence is transcribed; Swedish ones are translated.

One concept became two installations that look quite different, because each was co-designed with the people who run the room. I was the only designer and researcher. The curators, the graphic designer, the communicators and the educators brought what I could not: the museum’s story, its visual identity, a sense of how to speak to its visitors, and the right place in the room. Technicians, guides and receptionists keep it running every day. I came to each meeting with something to react to, and afterwards wrote up what we had decided and who would do what.

The museum staff brought

Röhsska

Curator and exhibition producer: The museum’s story and a place for it
Graphic designer: The visual identity
Curator of pedagogy: How to speak to visitors

Mölndals stadsmuseum

Museum educator and coordinator: Where it fits
Communicator: Visual communication

Both museums

Technicians, guides, reception: Mounting it, and running it daily

Made together

The prompts and the poster line
Where each installation stands
The phone for Mölndal

I brought

The only designer and researcher

The concept and the research
The phones, repaired and wired to call each other
Drafts, and the staff instructions

12site visits and meetings: 8 at Röhsska, 4 at Mölndal
Aftereach one, decisions written up and tasks handed out

Who brought what, by role, from the thesis.

Decided together

What	Where	With	What we chose
The poster line	Röhsska	the curators, the curator of pedagogy and the graphic designer	“Talk to a stranger” became “You might connect. You might not. But the moment is yours.”, so an unanswered call is not a failure.
Where it stands	Röhsska	the curators	The Innovation room of Design Stories, near the Ericofons behind glass, so it became part of the guided tours.
How it looks	Röhsska	the graphic designer	The museum’s own templates, with words you act on: “Pick up the phone”, “Try its dial”.
Which phone	Mölndal	the museum educator	The Ericsson Dialog, not the Kobra: a common home phone fits a city museum, the Kobra is a design object.
The setting	Mölndal	the museum educator	A wooden table, a shelf and an armchair, the electronics hidden in a vintage box from the collection, no big signs: discovery over direction.
The Rolodex	Both	the curators	Prompts you can turn one-handed while holding the phone, slow like dialling, Swedish and English on one card.
The feedback	Both	Röhsska’s staff	The form “felt like it was trying to steer the replies”, so it became post-its at Röhsska and a guestbook in Mölndal.

From the thesis’s museum phase. Every row came out of a meeting with the people who run the rooms; I brought something to react to, and we decided there.

At Röhsska I worked inside the museum’s visual identity and its graphic designer’s templates, so the posters look like Röhsska rather than like me. Röhsska’s wall is at the top of the page; Mölndal’s corner is below.

Röhsska is a design museum. Where it stands, we decided together with the curators: the Innovation room of Design Stories, a few metres from a case of Ericofons, so the phone you could pick up was the model you couldn’t, and the installation became part of the guided tours.

Mölndals stadsmuseum is about everyday life. With its museum educator we chose the Ericsson Dialog, the plain phone that sat in ordinary Swedish homes, set it beside a vintage armchair, and hid the electronics in a box from the museum’s own collection.

The Mölndal installation in Open Storage: the Ericsson Dialog and a Rolodex on a side table beside a red vintage armchair and a lamp, with bilingual posters on the wall. — Mölndal's corner in Open Storage: the same words in the city museum's own look, and the phone and the guestbook on the side table by the armchair.

Hang up What I learned

Design the situation, not just the objectWhere it stands and who agreed to it did as much as the phone itself

What delights me can intimidate someone else, so I designed for their comfort rather than my own.

Accessibility is the first thing I would fix. It leans hard on sound and touch, and that leaves people out.

A no from every telecom company said more about the context than about the idea.

What I would change

The thesis lists its own limits. The ones I would fix first:

Accessibility comes first. It leans hard on sound and on touch, and that leaves people out, so a next version needs other ways to take part.
Steadier technology. Second-hand phones with worn parts and a small budget meant audio drop-outs and connection glitches. I would keep the slow dial and lose the failures nobody chose.
An earlier casing decision. I spent a lot of time designing casings that did not fit the museums, and better communication on both sides would have saved it.
A plan for the evaluation. I saw immediate reactions, not lasting ones, and no call was recorded, for privacy, so the feedback was indirect. Next time I would follow up with visitors weeks later and find consent-based ways to observe.
Time with curatorial practice first. Learning it as I went slowed parts of the collaboration.

I was no longer designing alone, but within a larger ecology of people, objects and narratives.— from the thesis's conclusion

It was my first time working inside museums. In the lab I could keep things open and strange; a museum needed something its visitors could read and its staff could run. The curators, educators and communicators shaped it with me, from the words on the posters to the room it stands in and the phone at Mölndal, and that is how it came to belong to each exhibition.

I designed the failure state before the success state. You might connect. You might not. is empty-state copy, and it came from the curators’ worry that a promised conversation would leave visitors disappointed when nobody answered.

The project means a lot to me. Rotary phones and what they evoke are personal, and I am proud that it is still running. It also changed how I work: I learned to move between my own concept and what the people and the place around it need. Two lessons I put in my thesis defence:

Make it happen. Making something happen is better than not making it because you wanted it perfect.
Expect things to go wrong. However far ahead you plan, things can go wrong, so be prepared and don’t be discouraged when they do.

The moments I keep:

The first time someone picked up during the pilot and we had a real conversation.
Reading the post-its for the first time.
Calling from the Dialog in Mölndal and talking to a stranger standing in Röhsska.
Getting the Ericofon tattooed on my arm.

A pale blue Ericofon beside its opened base, the dial mechanism showing, and its coiled cable, laid out for repair. — The thesis ends in considerations, not rules: four lenses for anyone building something similar, and what each one became in the two museums.