There’s a lot we can learn from the creatures we share our city with. Worms, for example, survive and thrive in difficult conditions while helping ecosystems stay healthy. If worms can do it, maybe we can too.

By offering a glimpse into the world of worms, this piece invites curiosity about the strange and wonderful nature right on our doorstep. It suggests that finding joy and fascination in everyday life can help bring people together, especially when facing overwhelming challenges like climate change.

“Be More Worm” encourages us to move with care, stay connected to our senses, support one another, and embrace our own ways of being in the world.

Babette (@babette.vangerwen) is an artist-researcher exploring the awkward, bizarre, and often unseen sides of ecology through drawing, costume, performance, and observation. Emily (@embrown.creative) is a multidisciplinary designer focused on creating thoughtful, people- and planet-centred communication.

Together, they’ve collaborated on public projects including zines and motion graphics, combining organic textures and visual storytelling to create work that is both engaging and thought-provoking.

Artists

Babette (@babette.vangerwen) is an artist-researcher whose work explores the awkward, bizarre, and often unseen elements of everyday ecologies. Through observation, research, drawing, costume, and performance, she zooms in on the absurdities of ecological life — inviting us to see, feel, and behave beyond typical human perspectives.

Emily (@embrown.creative) is a multidisciplinary designer focused on creating positive impact for both people and the planet. She uses empathy as a starting point, crafting clear and practical visual communications that encourage thoughtful, conscious responses.

Together, Babette and Emily have collaborated on a range of public projects, including zines and motion graphic projections. Their work blends Babette’s rich textures and organic forms with Emily’s strength in visual storytelling, resulting in pieces that are both visually engaging and conceptually impactful.

Billboard Open Call

Be More Worm is the first of four billboard commissions entering around themes of climate change and adaptation. Our 2026 billboard Open Call launched in winter 2025, inviting artists to explore climate change and adaptation through different perspectives and lived experiences. Rather than focusing on fear or paralysis, we were interested in work rooted in agency, curiosity, care, and imagination.

We were especially drawn to ideas that invite people into climate conversations, not away from them - work that could re-sensitises us to the overwhelm that often surrounds the reality of this subject.

More than 120 proposals were reviewed by our community of neighbours, caretakers, trustees, and site team. From these, we selected four projects that reflect the breadth of the conversation in clear, thoughtful, and unexpected ways.

Photos by @babette.vangerwen and @embrown.creative