GMU:Humus-Micro-Habitats/IChen Lai

Crowdsourced Bokashi Starters and Recipes

Fermented composting "Bokashi" According to an article of bangordailynews.com [1] ““Bokashi”, a Japanese term meaning “fermented organic matter,” is an anaerobic fermentation process…, with its first stage fermenting or pickling kitchen scraps in a bucket and the second stage burying the fermented scraps in dirt or an outside compost pile to finish the job. It’s possible to purchase commercial bokashi composting kits, which includes a special container with a built-in tap and rice bran inoculated with “EM-1,” or effective microbes inoculant, a blend of yeasts, bacteria and more that was developed by a Japanese scientist.”

I believe the blend organisms (the compost starter) can be obtained by foraging and crowdsourcing and can be shared like other starters, such as those for sourdoughs, kombucha, kefir, yoghurt and so on.

In this project, I would like to collect and develop Bokashi compost recipes, to forage, to cultivate and to disseminate some starters.

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About Me

My name is I-Chen Lai, I am an artist and a gardener. I was majoring in landscape architecture in my undergraduate studies at Taiwan University, focusing on sustainable and participatory environment design. I continued my studies in the cross-disciplinary master’s programme “Art, Space and Nature” at the University of Edinburgh and I have been developing my artistic career ever since. With my art practice, I investigate how knowledge forms and transforms when it is delivered through different types of media and I explore its accessibility to a mixed audience from various backgrounds. Therefore, most of my projects are participative, and many of them are situated in public space.

My website: laiichen.com [2]