By Ruth Burke
Can You Help Me Find My Worm is a street-art influenced flyer project. There are over 15 “LOST WORM” flyers posted on street poles in various neighborhoods from central to southeastern Ohio. Using absurdity, humor and the most basic technique to find a lost pet, the flyer asks the reader to consider a potential relationship between humans and worms while sharing positive aspects of keeping worms (eg. they will eat your garbage). Flyers are posted on common dogwalking routes in my neighborhood. Many people that have companion animals will read “lost pet” flyers and hopefully be amused by the absurdity. The flyer provided a bit.ly shortcut to building your own worm bin on instructable.com. The project can be qualitatively assessed by linking Google Analytics to the Instructable article and tracking the bit.ly as the referral source. 
award finalist
Gaia Cabinet
By Erika Braccini, designer and recent graduate of Camberwell College of Arts, London, UK.
The Gaia Cabinet is a movable furniture unit that contains soil and earthworms. It has been designed to be brought around the city to schools to educate children on how important earthworms are, how important is to limit food waste, and to recycle it by feeding it to the earthworms, who will turn it into nutrients that will enrich the soil, making it 1000 times more nutrient. By using this enriched soil children are encouraged in planting and growing their own food, and by doing so learn how healthier food from highly nourishing soil is, and at the same time are also stimulated in being more connected with nature. By encouraging children, even on a small scale, in growing their own food, Gaia Cabinet can be the way forward in ensuring that children eat healthier food, therefore breaking the power of multinational corporations that control a big chunk of a food chain mainly made of non healthy and often GMO foods. In addition, Gaia Cabinet also wants to stimulate children and people in being more respectful of nature, and by getting in touch with the earthworms who have played an important role in our lives, could make children realise the importance of the environment that surrounds us and of preventing its destruction.
The main purpose of Gaia Cabinet is to bring attention on important issues through play, positivity, happiness and colours instead of seriousness and gloominess. I believe that if important issues such as food waste, healthy eating, respect to the environment and the importance of earthworms for our lives are explained in a more playful and interacting way, children are more likely to understand the importance of them.
I like to call myself an activist, environmentalist and happy designer, as I believe that design is a new form of positive activism that has the potential to become a powerful tool to tackle environmental and social issues. This is the reason why I decided to embark on a journey through the field of design and what has led me to graduate in three-dimensional design from Camberwell College of Arts in June 2014.
In fact, I have faith that play, creativity, positivity and happiness is the way forward to tackle and overcome environmental and social issues.
The design of the cabinet is fundamental for the project and for my ideals. Since this project is all about raising awareness on food waste, connecting and respecting nature, growing food and have a healthy and balanced diet, is also important that the product itself is coherent with these principles. Gaia Cabinet is entirely made with recycled plastic and stainless steel, both fully recyclable and locally sourced in UK. It is very easy to assemble and disassemble, therefore once its lifespan is over, it can be easily placed into the recycle bin, making it a truly zero waste product. The product is born from a thorough research on how to limit its impact on the environment, and be in line with the principles of a circular economy, an economy without waste where all the materials are going back into the system from where they were coming from.
Gaia cabinet has already been tested at Rhyl Primary Schools, at the Assembly Community Centre and at Oliver Goldsmith Primary School (schools in London), as part of my research for my final major project. In an hour workshop I explained to children why earthworms are important for human lives, why is important to have a healthy diet and how to prevent food waste. I was letting children touch the worms so they could have a better understanding of them and explained them how to compost with worms. After the lesson on earthworms, compost and food growing, we were making simple clay pots together that I took back to university and fired, glazed and donated to them so they could start planting their own edible plants. The workshops have been successful as children were very happy to see me after a few months when I was going back to schools to bring them the pots. Teachers were happy and willing to have more workshops in the schools and engage with different age groups.
The aim of Gaia Cabinet is to create a cycle within which every form of life will help and support each other, and provide a great ecosystem.
Please visit my website at www.erikabraccini.com for more information about Gaia Cabinet project, a video of the project and images of the cabinet.
e-worm
By Gavino Chachalo y Maria Patricia Tinajero
What is an e-worm? Is lumbricina or commonly know as earthworm. Why do we call it e-worm? Because worms are associated with many parasites that are harmful to humans, but by adding the letter e at the beginning of the word, we want to linguistically reclassify the identity and the function of the worm in contemporary urban culture. The sound of the prefix e gives the word a new meaning that is social and psychologically accepted; after all we all have an e-mail account.
Additionally, the letter e refers to economy and ecology. Two buzz words in contemporary culture, as we strive to a more sustainable existence between human economies and environmental impact. Economy and ecology share the Latin root οίκος, meaning home; therefore Thinking Like an e-worm is a project about taking everyday actions to learn about the tied connections between economy and ecology.
The project started in our home in Quito, Ecuador. We start by composting our food scraps by bacterial fermentation. This research let us to worms for speeding up the composting process, as well as to increase the quality of the compost. Now we need more food scraps to feed the hungry e-worm. We are asking our neighbors to be part of this project by keeping their food scraps. People are intrigued by what we are doing so we want to teach them about gardening, composting and e-worms. If you like our project, we would use the funds in two ways: 1.) a roof to cover our e-worm tanks and 2.) buckets for food scrap collection from our neighborhood. We are also designing a web site to make our process available to more people that might think that because they are living in big metropolitan areas they have no choices for their food supplies.
Worm Propaganda
We at WormCulture are honored that the Portland Oregon designer Joe Wirtheim created a propaganda poster for worms. It is a new addition to his long-running series called The Victory Garden of Tomorrow. It includes several space age chickens, plants and people and you can see the whole series on his website. We are told that this new poster, Worms will do the Work will eventually be available for purchase there.
Joe says: “this project is committed to civic innovation and social progress — better food, better gardens, and better cities. I get really excited about edible school gardens, city bicycles, home cooking, backyard chickens, beekeeping, rooftop gardens and really anything that brings health and activity to people’s lives. I love looking at vintage graphics, especially mid-century propaganda and advertising.”
About this design: “I’m inspired by the power and relentless energy of such a small creature. As described by Youngs and the Worm Culture blog, these creatures and their microbe allies take our discards and attack them with vigor. The result is a valuable resource for any gardener. I wanted to show our Red Wriggler in a heroic light among their work; cute, harmless and in our service.”
Compostable fashion and art
The McAllister family created 3 artworks that worms and humans can enjoy. Lorrie made two compostable hats – modeled by daughters Iris and Harriet. From Lorrie:
“I’m interested in compostable fashion and sustainable art about nature and our relationship to it. It is our responsibility to ensure the long-term health of our world and its inhabitants –you, me, worms and all living creatures.”
And this is 8-year old Harriet’s inspired collage, Worm Digging in Earth.
“I love worms and the environment, so I made art about worms. I hope that more people will learn about and care for worms.”
Understory
by Loren Kronemyer
Worm Wide Web is a collection of videos that document the live performance of garden insects. Moving in condensed time-lapse, the creatures appear to congregate together and articulate familiar symbols related to communications technology. Originally conceived as part of the City of Subiaco pARk project, these videos are embedded in the site-specific augmented reality app hosted by the Subiaco Art Centre. When viewed through the app, the videos are overlayed onto the pavement, making it appear as though the insects are appearing out of the garden itself. Standing on their own, the videos exist as a simple but evocative tribute to the innovative communication and emergent intelligence strategies of these commonplace garden fauna.
The other videos in this series can be viewed here.
To see more of Loren’s artwork, visit her website.
Worms in Space
Students in a Cybiotic Interaction Design Class taught by Andrew Quitmeyer at Georgia Tech created this interactive board game that allows humans to play with worms. I’m not sure how much fun this game is for the worms, but the designers, Katie Staples and Eric Hamilton, certainly created an complete project package. It has a good story, electronic detection circuitry, motivational elements, a 3D game board, and an entire “Instructable” that shows you how to build your own.
“NASA has taken worms to the ISS on their own special capsule. There was an accident aboard the station and the worm astronauts have to navigate to the escape capsule to return to Earth. The airlock to the escape capsule has been damaged but can be reached from the other side of the ship. The human astronauts are helping their wormy comrades reach the capsule by using a series of warning lights in each quadrant of the station.”
I particularly enjoyed their reflection on their project and future plans for it, which included giving the worms more control, building 2 mazes and letting the worms play each other by triggering the doors and lights. They also suggest “eliminating any ’empty space’ in the game board layout because the worms tend to migrate to those areas that a dark and quiet.”
I guess worms still win when it comes to finding dark, empty space to inhabit.
Worms in Space 3D electronic game board.
Wormy Girl: Torso Container
by Ann Corley Silverman
My wormy torso sits in the kitchen and I feed her scraps of my daily life while another universe of life inhabits her ”guts”. The micro-biome that inhabits our own guts are as essential to the self we navigate through the world as the worms are to this artwork.
I’m following an impulse to connect body and soil in a way that elevates ordinary dirt to the level of beauty and awe that is usually reserved for life forms above ground or far away in the celestial heavens.
The Urbeen, by Studio Claire Hornn
Living and working in style – with composting worms. Dutch designer Claire Hornn has just concluded a four-month-long pilot project where her hand-made, bamboo worm bins were placed in six companies in Amsterdam for evaluation. The results were very positive and helpful towards her current designs. 
She discovered in her pilot program that users were asking for outdoor versions, but she points out that the composting process is more efficient at indoor temperatures. Claire describes her design motivations this way: “Vermicomposting is a great way to be more aware of your food waste and to green your home. It’s odourless and ideal for inside use. But where are the good-looking, functional designs for indoor composting? This question was the start of the Urbeen. The Urbeen is an indoor, design and multifunctional vermi-compostbin. It’s made out of CO2-neutral bamboo and can be used a compost-bin, a stool or little table. It fits easily small apartment and is therefore interesting for city-people who don’t have a garden or balcony.” Her most current designs will soon be available for sale online. Stay tuned by following her website and blog.
Street Corner Composter
Street Corner Composter by Rowin Snijder
Can worm composting become a community activity? Carpenter/artist Rowin Snijder is testing this concept out on a street corner in Amsterdam. He has designed and built a durable, oak cabinet that looks like an elevated planter box. Inside, it hides 2 vermicomposting compartments, into which neighbors can deposit their food scraps. When one side is filled, they use the adjacent section so the worms will follow the food scraps and move into it through a bamboo lattice that connects them. The finished compost can be harvested from the first bin while the second becomes full of worms that are being fed. And the composting process continues. 
Rowin says, “When a group of people take it upon themselves to take responsibility for their own trash, and work together, so much more happens than just making compost. It builds community, a connection with your surrounding, and is an inspiration for others to do so as well. The compost produced, can be used in gardens in the street or on rooftop gardens and balconies.” He has also designed a version for the balcony, which he sells in Amsterdam, but also offers the plans for free on the Le Compostier Facebook page for others who want to build it themselves. And there is a new, 2 square meter version that has space for worms and bees. The bees are invited in through a yellow-painted portal in the wood box, where they can find refuge in their own protected box inside. An intriguing cohabitation with worms, bees, plants and people on the street. I look forward to hearing more about this project as it develops. Visit the Le Compostier blog for more information.
The yellow painted hole invites bees in to share the space with the worms.
Worm Culture 