All in a day's work: Daniel Jewesbury, artist, co-ordinator of Radio Exchange, Carlow

I'm a working artist developing a piece of radio art with the inhabitants of Carlow. It's called Radio Exchange and is an examination of cultural integration in a town which is home to many asylum seekers and refugees.

I often drive from my hometown of Belfast to Carlow in the morning, but three hours there and back is arduous. I've taken to staying in a local B&B. It's like a home away from home now and the breakfast has won me over.

A project like Radio Exchange has an important social dimension. It brings a lot of people into the process. It is education in the broadest sense of the word - it's not institutional. At first, we were all worried that the project would just be a talking shop. Then we realised that the process was the outcome - people talked.

I spend the morning planning programmes, meeting with all sorts of people from the community - from refugees to local politicians, business people to school children.

I'm very interested in radio as a medium for both art and education. It is a tool of mass communication, but it speaks to each listener individually.

We're keeping this local. Radio Exchange concerns itself with the experience of being an immigrant in Carlow. There are enough people considering the national dimension.

At lunchtime, I catch up on the news. It's interesting that the furore over a judge's remarks in Longford should coincide with our project in Carlow. Longford residents - new and established - are finding new ways to accommodate their changing population. I don't believe that this national discussion of their situation really represents the feelings of people on the ground. The national media can't address a local issue meaningfully.

I take my video camera around town for an hour after lunch. I'm compiling material for a short film about Carlow for the local Cineplex. There's a rich mine of material here. I'm looking forward to the finished product.

In the afternoon, I pay a visit to Askea Girls School to talk about content for next week's programmes. Helen Dalton runs a class there for children of asylum seekers and refugees. Some of the girls were born here, some were not. It's interesting to spend time with children who are the embodiment of the current discussions about citizenship. They consider themselves to be Irish. Why wouldn't they? They have never lived anywhere else.

The girls are very enthusiastic about Radio Exchange. They want to create programmes about the cultures of their families. We consider topics such as Siberian music and Romanian recipes. They're not interested in talking politics. They want to show off the things they have learned and grown up with. It's hard facing into a monocultural society when your young experience has been so different.

In the evening, from six to eight, I chair a discussion programme between some local politicians on air. We discuss the solutions that local residents have found for the inevitable pressures of a growing multicultural population. Communities are dealing with the outcomes of decisions made at national and European level. They have no control over those decisions. They must work out their own strategies. The people of Carlow have had a very positive experience of immigration. Radio Exchange has no imperative to speak beyond this community because our experience is unique.

We have no particular format to follow on Radio Exchange - we're not bound by any conventions. This is not RTÉ, it's not a commercial project. It's public art on the radio, so we have no boundaries except the desire to retain balance. We are careful not to overload the content with dry, factual pieces. The next programme this evening is a celebration of Nigerian music.

I have become very comfortable in this town. Creating Radio Exchange proved easy because so much good work had already been done. This town is finding its own route to integration.