LOOP Youngstown is turning to artists and the general public to document their communities.

The group is seeking participants for a project called A Day in the LOOP. The goal is to use photography, video, writing and other art forms to capture the spirit of the community, in this case the five-county region encompassing Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties in Ohio and Mercer and Lawrence counties in Pennsylvania.

All of the submissions will document the 24-hour period from 12:01 a.m. and 11:59 p.m. Oct. 17.

Karen Schubert, founding director of Lit Youngstown and chair of LOOP’s advisory board, said the idea was inspired by a similar project Literary Cleveland did during the COVID-19 pandemic, but its roots go back even further.

“It reminded me of those big coffee table books, “‘A Day in the Life,’ that I used to love,” Schubert said. “I felt it was a really intimate and informal but also technically interesting way to think about a place, a place of identity and just a moment in time.”

One of LOOP’s founding goals was to create opportunities for the arts community, and Schubert believed with its broad membership encompassing different disciplines that it could expand on the concept beyond the written word.

“We’re an arts group, we can open it up to all kinds of arts media,” she said. “I’m hoping that this will inspire school groups. We’re doing it on a Friday, so maybe someone gets married that day. You know, just the normal ebb and flow of daily life. I would love to hear from people in their workplace. We can look out their workplace window with them or getting ready for school, whatever it is in just a little moment in time.”

The project is designed to be inclusive, Schubert said. She wants to loop in the general public as well as the arts community.

“We all have cell phones, and cell phone (photo) quality is terrific, so that can really open it up.”

Oct. 17 falls during Lit Youngstown’s Fall Literary Festival from Oct. 16 to 18 at various locations. The date was picked primarily because organizers thought the fall season and the changing leaves could make for striking photos, but the response from first-time visitors to the area during previous festivals is another reason Schubert wanted to do A Day in the LOOP.

“When they were here, they were experiencing Youngstown for the first time, and I love the way they’re reflecting our places back to us,” she said. “They’re telling me, ‘It’s beautiful here. Look at this gorgeous architecture, look at the beautiful geography, and the people are incredible. I want to come back.’

“Their first impression of Youngstown is this kind of artistically charged place. And I’m hoping that we can do that for ourselves. We can remind ourselves of the beauty that is here. This will be just a nice way to celebrate that.”

Submissions will be evaluated by a panel featuring Autumn Joi Ellis, an artist recently featured in a solo exhibition at the Butler Institute of American Arts; Tony Nicholas, a photographer and faculty member at Youngstown State University and Trumbull Career and Technical Center; author Thomas Welsh, who’s written several books on local history; and Stephen Poullas, a photographer and former co-owner of Soap Gallery.

They will choose the works that will be published and archived on LOOP Youngstown’s website.

Pre-registration is required at loopyoungstown.org. Participants must live in the five-county area, and all submissions must be created on Oct. 17. Complete guidelines can be found on the website.