Everyday Life in Middletown is a multi-media examination of ordinary life in Muncie, Indiana, sponsored by the Virginia B. Ball Center for Creative Inquiry and the Center for Middletown Studies at Ball State University. Beginning in January, 2016, our team delved deeply into theory about everyday life, including the writings of Sigmund Freud, Michel de Certeau, Ben Highmore, and many others. Highmore himself visited to provide further inspiration and give a talk about the British Mass Observation project of the late 1930s, another one of our sources. From early February through March, we ran our Mass Observation-inspired study with the help of 15 Muncie citizens, who kept day diaries, answered questionnaires, and sat for interviews. In early March, we traveled to New York, visiting the Union Docs film collective, the Museum of the Moving Image, and the Museum of Modern Art.
The results of our work include an experimental documentary film and this archival, interactive website. Click the links below to find out more.
For a list of local Muncie community organizations supported by the EDLM team and our informants, click here.