Imagine spending all of your time – not most of it, but all of it – in your own neighbourhood. Quite a challenge, and interesting in thousands of ways.

Lucas Ihlein did just that, in Petersham, for two months – and although he's promised to drop an experiment on live local to say hello, I'm jumping the gun and talking about it now.

At the border

In April-May [2005], I was artist-in-residence in Kellerberrin, a tiny town in the West Australian wheatbelt. 1000 residents, wheat and sheep, declining population, etcetera. For the two months I was there, I kept a blog each morning, about who I met, what we talked about - a document of mutual curiosity between a city dweller and his rural hosts. That blog is here: http://www.kellerberrin.com. My question on returning to Sydney was: “how would this exact same process work in my own neighborhood”?

So he tried it. The writing is fresh, introspective and clever, which makes browsing his site a potentially day-wasting experience (and a very pleasurable one). He hangs around, meets people, watches jelly wrestling, explores, and ponders and reflects upon his community, art and his role within those things.

Highly worth checking out.

Photo from Lucas Ihlein's Bilateral Flickr site.