It is this care for people and relationships that provides the base for Tellervo's aesthetic concerns. When she was part of a girl's choir in her early art school years, they featured in an advertisement in the newspaper which said that they were willing to go to anyone's house to perform for them, so long as they were able to document the performance for potential future use. Their one invitation led them to a man's house, where they sang the Finnish national anthem, and after their performance he showed them some holiday photos. This man, however, made the situation uncomfortable by being naked throughout their visit. Tellervo later concluded that it was partly uncomfortable because it wasn't truly participatory - both sides were doing things at each other rather than with each other, so she decided to start working together with people in their homes to develop ideas.
Oliver also doesn't like working on his own. There is one project that he considers having initiated on his own, but it still involved working with people. Since him and Tellervo collaborated, any project they do is participatory and starts with the assumption that there might be a need for it. They then send out an invitation for participants to see whether they are right or wrong (more on that here). Throughout the Complaints Choir project, they made particular care to ensure that people were only there because they wanted to be; it was okay for people to leave the project if they weren't having fun, though people had a range of motivations for staying.
