Emily Dzieweczynski

Questions on Walls is an experience developed to connect communities across space and time, despite the present need to distance.

Questions are found, physically — posted throughout the city on community boards, buildings, and telephone poles — and can be interacted with virtually — via the web interface. As you answer questions, you have the opportunity to share your thoughts and receive those of a stranger. It's a chance to celebrate both our similarities and differences, listen to others, and to empathize over the collective confusion that is existing, here and now.

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We pass by each other everyday, yet it takes an intentional moment to connect, to learn about each other deeply. COVID-19 made it harder to stumble on these moments of intimate curiosity with strangers. I wanted to continue learning more about the people around me, while keeping all of us safe. I developed this experience as a means of connecting to others across space and time.

Questions are posted throughout the city of South Minneapolis, with a QR code and a link that connects the participant to the corresponding question on the interface. The participant then has the option to answer the question, to share their answer, and to receive an answer from a stranger via email. When we meet strangers, we often catch ourselves proceeding with caution, sometimes the experience feels mysterious, even magical. The experience is designed with these sentiments in mind — at the beginning of the experience, the participant is met with little to no information to explain its purpose or direction.