Pick up
Read the question on the placard and lift the receiver.
A public listening project
Some things are easier to say when no one is on the other end.
A phone, a question, and a little room to speak. No performance. No perfect answer.
We ask one question at a time. You decide what to say, what to keep private, and whether your voice can travel beyond the phone.
01 — How it works
Choose
The recorded message explains OPEN, HIDE ME and PRIVATE before you begin.
Speak
Wait for the tone. Say as much or as little as you want.
02 — Find the phone
Built to move through the city.
First public location
Coming soon.
03 — Your recording, your choice
Choose how your story can live.
You will hear these options before the recording begins.
Share it as recorded.
If selected, your recording may be considered for public use by Your Safe Space Collective.
Keep the story. Conceal me.
If selected, reasonable steps are taken to conceal your identity before publication.
This stays with us.
If selected, your recording will not be published by Your Safe Space Collective.
Please do not name or identify other people in your recording. Participation is intended for adults aged 18+.
04 — Before you speak
Know what happens to your recording.
Selected recordings may be shared publicly by Your Safe Space Collective. Before you record, you choose OPEN, HIDE ME or PRIVATE.
Read the privacy & recording policy →Privacy & recording
What is recorded
When you use the installation, YSSC records the audio you choose to submit and the privacy choice you make before recording. If photography or video is taking place around an installation, that will be indicated on-site.
Why recordings are collected
Recordings are collected to operate the listening project and, where your selected privacy choice permits, to curate stories for YSSC's public-facing work. We do not collect these recordings to build advertising profiles and do not sell participant recordings or participant data.
Other people in your story
Please do not share another person's full name, contact details, address, workplace details, account handles or other information that could reasonably identify them.
Retention and access
YSSC keeps recordings only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purpose for which they were collected. Access is limited to people who need it to operate, review, safeguard or publish the project in accordance with the participant's selected choice.
If you change your mind
If you later want YSSC to locate a recording, provide as much information as you can about the installation location, approximate date and time, the question displayed and any distinctive opening words.
05 — About
Your Safe Space Collective
Your Safe Space Collective is a public listening and storytelling project built around a simple idea: sometimes people need somewhere to speak without having to perform, explain themselves, or be known.
Each installation creates a pause in public space — one telephone, one question, and room to answer in your own way. Responses can be light, unfinished or deeply personal. There is no right kind of story.
YSSC is participant-first: clear choices, minimal pressure and enough privacy for people to decide what happens to what they share. As the project moves through the city, it becomes a growing collection of how people feel, remember, hope and connect.
An initiative by Archive Vault
Some things are kept. Some things need to be said.
Archive Vault works with objects that can hold stories. Your Safe Space Collective grew from the other side of that idea: giving the stories themselves somewhere to exist — even when they are unfinished, ordinary, difficult or never meant to become permanent.
Created by Archive Vault as an independent public-facing initiative, YSSC is an archive of another kind — built from voices, pauses, memories and the things people finally choose to say.
When you see the phone
Pick up.
Listen.
Speak.