Make a Piano in Spain

I've noticed a few pieces of work recently which use questions to draw responses from participants.

Make a Piano in Spain asked 500 people ‘What do you do to make yourself feel better?’ (May 2008)

As part of Fred, American artist Dee Hibbert-Jones asked "What's your method of escape?" (June 2008) and used The Secret Life of Cumbria to collect some of the answers, including:

"I set off a rocket and imagine I'm in it or watch for a satellite and imagine the same. X Jan"

"letting myself be held and kissed by a man there's no future with."

and this, which sounds bloody brilliant:

"i go into the woods, remove my clothing, sit in a stream, light a cigarette, close my eyes and listen. "

And our own work in which we put posters at bus stops, among other places, in Manchester, asking questions like "Where were you happiest to arrive and why?" (October 2006).

I don't know if there is anything more than coincidence in me noticing this, and I'm sure there are other and older examples.

But maybe we are at a moment in which we understand that if we find the right structures to welcome people who don't consider themselves to be writers or artists to say something in their own voice, they'll come up with funnier/ more surprising/strange/beautiful/poetic/sadder responses than we could ever have managed as writers or artists, and which taken together create archives of life with real depth and reach.