An East Passyunk artist has been documenting the lives Philadelphians through an online diary all year – and her project won't stop when 2024 ends.
Molly Gorelick, 27, is the creator of "A Year in Philadelphia," a website that runs daily entries from city residents detailing their days, generally in an hour-by-hour format with photos. Gorelick plans to expand the project in 2025.
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The idea materialized late last year after Gorelick finished an MFA program in poetry at Temple University and began a new job.
"With the transition into colder weather, I was feeling sad and a little bored, and I was thinking about what the internet was like when I was a bit younger," Gorelick said. "I was part of all of these online communities with girls my age back in high school, and I wanted to bring that sort of community back into my life as an adult and have something creative built into my everyday."
Gorelick primarily was inspired by writer Amy Rose Spiegel's "Enormous Eye" website, which collected essays from writers who each cataloged their thoughts and actions on a Saturday.
"I'm just really obsessed with reading and hearing about the mundane things people do that they might not think are worth sharing," Gorelick said.
How 'A Year in Philadelphia' works
Gorelick put out calls and flyers seeking participants for her diary, hoping she could find 366 residents – 2024 is a leap year – willing to share the intimate details of their daily routines.
The response exceeded Gorelick's expectations and, as a result, she had to assign multiple people to one day. Each participant was given a random day of the year to document.
Participants had about three days to complete their entries together, which also were shared on Instagram. For the most part, Gorelick said she took a hands-off approach to the contributions.
"I do very little editing on the posts. If there's a glaring spelling error that prevents us from understanding the meaning of what's being said, I'll (edit) that," Gorelick said. "I find spelling errors and things of that nature to be very human and endearing, especially in something that's meant to archive the moment in time, and something that's cataloging a day. When you're keeping track of something throughout the day, you don't necessarily have time to polish it."
The format of the entries was generally open, but most of them included details like brushing teeth, eating breakfast, going out to restaurants and other humdrum activities, usually with time stamps and pictures.
"A lot of people think they're doing too much," Gorelick said. "And I'm like, 'No, I want more.' I think a lot of people are convinced that their lives are boring. And I'm guilty of this too, of course, but I think it comes from the fact that we live with ourselves all the time, every moment of every day. So we're used to our own habits. And I think that's what makes hearing about this so interesting from an outside perspective."
Other inspirations for the project
Gorelick has long been interested in cataloging life events, making lists in diaries during her youth and using Instagram as a photo archive as she got older. In grad school, she engaged in writing projects that required her to keep up with prompts over long durations.
Her fascination with recording history also stems from her ancestral ties to Philadelphia — Gorelick describes herself as a fifth-generation Philadelphian, and she enjoys learning about what draws people to the city and why they end up staying.
Despite the communal nature of the endeavor, Gorelick said the diary started as a "selfish" project.
"I wanted to do this in particular, because I was feeling lonely in Philadelphia, and I was like, 'What do other people do when they're feeling lonely in Philadelphia?' Like, surely we're not going to catch everybody on their best day in this project," Gorelick said. "I am really lucky to live in a place that really values community."
What's next for 'A Year in Philly?'
The Philly community will have the chance to help Gorelick more directly with the diary in 2025, as she is seeking people to "curate" entries each month. The hope is the curators will bring a unique approaches to their assigned months, tapping into their communities and networks.
For instance, Gorelick said, a school teacher could give each of their students a day in the month, akin to a class project.
By involving others, Gorelick said she will have more time for outreach in other communities in Philly. She considers the current iteration to be more of an extension of her community, noting the prominent demographic of people in the project is "young, white woman artists."
As winter nears, Gorelick isn't sure what the rest of her year will look like, but said she is much busier compared to the same time last year, when the project began.
"That'll be the true test, huh?" Gorelick said. "Again, I kind of created this as something for me to look forward to. ... I didn't know if it would resonate with other people, but I like to think that it's given other people something to look forward to as well."
For now, Gorelick will continue with her duties for the rest of A Year in Philadelphia's 2024 entries.
"Never a dull moment, even when it feels like it is," Gorelick said.