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USA Road Trip: Variation on a Theme

Blue Chevigny and Flynn Larsen's You Are Here Project is a cross-country examination of social networks and the ways that geography and life intertwine.

This is how the You Are Here Project works: its producers drove across the country (from New York City to California) in two installments, interviewing people along the way. Their path was determined not by sightseeing prerogatives but by the friendship networks of the people they interviewed. Interviewee A asked prospective interviewee B, some distance to the west, if he or she would mind being interviewed, and the journey unfolded. The You Are Here Project's rules are geared toward moving the project along.

Chevigny, who used to be a producer at NPR's This American Life, and Larsen, a New York-based photographer, began the project in 2005. In their 2005 stretch, they traveled from New York to Indianapolis. In June and July of this year, they resumed their journey in St. Louis, and finished up in Escalon, California.

The 2005 interviews appear on the You Are Here Project site. The interviews conducted earlier this summer remain unedited. Happily, Chevigny and Larsen have set up a blog, with text, photos, and audio clips, to provide a preview of the finished project.