Can soil be the carrier of activist messaging?

Terraffiti is a reusable, non-invasive, soil-based stencil kit. Ideal for stencilling urban outdoor surfaces that are humid, rough, and perhaps often ignored. Under the right conditions and with the proper care, messages created with this kit will live, grow, and flourish in the most unexpected places.

Inspired by the Protest Stencil Toolkit by Patrick Thomas, Terraffiti adds a twist to the artistic practice of stencilling and graffiti by using soil as its medium. The kit allows users to work with soil from their surroundings, grounding the messages created in the context of where it is situated. By returning to water and maintain the result, the kit asks its users to tend to their message for it to flourish.

Here’s how the kit works: Piece together the modular alphabet stencil into the desired message. Mix the soil with water and optionally add seeds. Apply the mixture through the stencil onto a surface. Return to water and check on the result.

Terraffiti is also entirely open-source. The kit provides the recipe for the soil mixture as well as instructions to create additional stencils. Users can also download the schematics of the stencil to be laser cut at their local FabLab.