🔗 Share this article

In 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his ultimate major projects. Known for creating art that erases itself, Metzger had devoted his career to confronting societal issues from peace activism to ethical eating. In a brief video message, he issued a call for a worldwide initiative to celebrate the natural world.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your engagement in this worldwide call for a day of action to reflect on the environment on the fourth of November, 2015,” he stated, urging artists and creatives to oppose the continuing disappearance of living beings. “Our task is to help the public recall of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into domains that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Creation of Environmental Reflection

And so Remember Nature was born, a day when artists across the country created responses to the escalating planetary emergency. One of the curators, who supported Metzger in his final years, notes his sense of urgency. “I sensed a great sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “I just said – let’s not mess around. We shouldn’t hold back for financial support or for anyone to green light this. Take action immediately.”

A Decade Later

A decade on, the initiative may not have sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but Joelson believes its impact can still be seen in campaigns like Culture Declares and environmental protests, as well as in how creatives consider the environmental impact of their work. For this purpose she is relaunching it to commemorate its ten-year mark. Among the 18 lead artists taking part currently are A Man Called Adam and prominent artists. They have all produced imagery, shared messages, and developed pieces set to be presented on 4 November 2025.

Sowing Change

Interviewing Anya Gallaccio, she is on site in Kent, cultivating apple trees that will grow to form a spiral-shaped orchard. Working with schoolchildren, her project is half artwork and half educational workshop. According to her, the preparation and sowing sessions have already incorporated learning about maths (calculating the gaps in the orchard), science (studying the genetic makeup), and geography (researching the stories of how different apples arrived in Britain).

A lot of the apples were chosen because they’ve got funny names such as the Bloody Butcher. We have one apple that produces crimson liquid

“Many of the apples were picked because they’ve got funny names such as the Duck’s Bill,” says Gallaccio. “We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ scarlet-colored sap. They all have background narratives. The decio apple was brought over by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that dropped off a tree and struck the scientist’s head.”

Gallaccio wanted the children to be more actively aware of the natural world and the control we have over it. “To many of them, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was urging them, when they go shopping, to look on the bag and see the variety and their origin. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Across the Country

At the capital, a participant’s work about extinction will involve participants searching a major gallery on a journey to find the frozen formations that have been vanished in the past decade. Every ice sheet will be illustrated on the gallery’s windows and walls using invisible ink. Whenever one is found, a bell will ring and a performance will be conducted to commemorate that individual formation.

Meanwhile, up in Barrow-in-Furness, Maddi Nicholson will be hosting a free exhibition about our alienation from the environment, as well as holding a communal feast, made using organic, local produce. Further north, a participant is streaming her environmental performance, in which regional performers undertake a task to sing plants back to health in a local park.

Young Insights

Like Gallaccio, a featured creator will be engaging schoolchildren – on the scheduled date she is aiming to decorate Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in children’s artwork that capture their aspirations and concerns for the tomorrow. “Children’s words and images are impactful because they’re not as trammelled as mature perspectives,” she says in her call to action video. “What children have to offer to the world is something truly special and perhaps it can inspire a feeling of duty from everyone. Children are innocent. They have anxieties about what’s next. But let’s not make it about worry – it should be about hope and us ensuring that they see a better world.”

Remembrance and Reflection

Paul Harfleet’s work also appeals to children. With a background in performance, his avian project involves sketching winged creatures and then embodying them – and for the event he is intending to tackle an iconic figure. He is also organizing a guided walk of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his ongoing series over the recent decades. This endeavor began when he experienced multiple occurrences of prejudice on a one occasion. To counter this, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the location of every incident and photograph it – the project has since spiralled to incorporate experiences shared by other people across the world. “The flowers remain there but they fade quickly,” says Harfleet. “It seems pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

The artist selected the bloom not just for the obvious reason – it has long been a derogatory label – but also because its origin is the French verb, penser, to think. “It became associated with a man who is thoughtful, and that, of course, is a negative trait,” he says.

The plan on 4 November is to sow flowers at new locations and also replant flowers in places he has honored before, all the while discussing with those on the guided walk about the occurrences and his recollections. “There’s been quite a few following earlier installations,” he says with regret.

Progressing Optimistically

He desires his work – and