Local artist's 'Vermin' pop up all over planet

Artist Jamie Burmeister has his teeny, tiny sculptures installed all over the world.

They're in subway stations. Casinos. Restaurants. National parks. And even outside a storefront in Uganda.

The artist, who is known locally for his intricate, creative, kinetic sculptures, has grown a project he started on a whim into a social media-meets-art project that keeps him busy making pieces every day.

He's been making Vermin — 4-inch-tall clay men sculptures — for about four years.

The project began because Burmeister had been working on a number of big art shows, and instead of making art on a daily basis, he felt like he was a manager. So he started to create small, clay men in a variety of poses — a few each day. He fired them in his kiln, then installed them around his gallery shows and in museums he visited.

Soon after he made the first sculptures, the University of Nebraska at Omaha approached him to be a presenter at its 10-10-10 conference, a three-day event that focused on technology and social media. Burmeister decided to use the Internet to spread Vermin beyond his gallery shows, and beyond Omaha.

Burmeister created a website, Vermin.me, along with a Facebook page and a Twitter account, and, in the eight months between the day he figured out his project and the start of the conference, aimed to spread Vermin sculptures as far and wide as he could.

Anywhere Burmeister went, he brought a Vermin, installed it, then photographed it for his website. Soon, people started requesting Vermin to install on their own travels. Burmeister sends the sculptures to the people for free and just asks that they take a photo of their installation and send it to him.

To date, he's created more than 5,000 Vermin. Three thousand Vermin have been installed in 800 locations around the world: six continents, 30 countries and 32 states. More than 70 people have helped install the works of art.

"People come up with ideas that I'd never think of," Burmeister said.

So what's the weirdest place a Vermin has landed?

A Facebook friend of Burmeister requested a sculpture to take to the Burning Man Festival, which takes place every year in the Nevada desert. The friend installed the Vermin on a large, wooden temple during the event and took photos that he sent back to Burmeister.

A few weeks later, another friend, who lives in Los Angeles, sent him a photo of the same Vermin, burnt to a crisp, covered with melted beads and missing a leg. Turns out his second friend was on cleanup detail at the festival and found the tiny sculpture that got left behind.

Burmeister said sometimes Vermin he installs hang out in the same place for a while. Other times, people find one and take it.

"The fastest one to be picked up was during a family trip to Disneyland," he said, chuckling. "I installed a Vermin on the street that looked like it had been stepped on, took a picture, and then one of those Disneyland people came and swept it up 30 seconds later."

A family of birds that lives in the rafters of his studio inspired the name "Vermin."

One part of him always wants to get rid of those birds. The other part of him thinks they're just doing what he's doing: trying to raise their babies and have a home.

"The Vermin started as a sort of self-portrait," he said. "It's about putting myself in the position of the Vermin, and about emphasizing other life forms that we don't value as much as our own lives."

Burmeister initially paid for the Vermin project with some grant money, but now he's funding it on his own. Recently, he cast some Vermin in bronze and sold them in a gallery. This year he plans to start making Vermin in different sizes — 1 inch to 4 inches — and that have more defined features, like female Vermin and Vermin of all different ages.

"I'll keep giving them out for free as long as I can," he said.

Contact the writer:

402-444-1069, sarah.bakerhansen@owh.com

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