🔗 Share this article

In 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his ultimate major projects. Famed for introducing self-destructive creations, Metzger had dedicated his life to addressing human struggles from peace activism to vegetarianism. Via a concise video message, he made a plea for a global day of action to remember nature.

“This is my appeal for your engagement in this global appeal for a day of action to remember nature on November 4th, 2015,” he declared, inviting makers and thinkers to stand against the ongoing loss of flora and fauna. “Our responsibility is to help the public recall of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so art will enter domains that are naturally imaginative.”

The Inception of Remember Nature

In this way the Nature Remembrance initiative was established, a day when artists across the country created responses to the unfolding climate catastrophe. An organizer, who worked closely with Metzger in his final years, recalls his sense of urgency. “I sensed a great sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “I just said – let’s not mess around. Let’s not wait for funding or for anyone to approve this. Let’s just do it.”

A Decade Later

A decade on, the initiative did not triggered the broad uprising across the arts that Metzger had envisioned, but Joelson believes its influence can still be felt in initiatives like cultural advocacy groups and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how makers handle the environmental impact of their practices. This is the reason she is reviving it to celebrate its ten-year mark. Among the key participants involved this time are Yu-Chen Wang and prominent artists. All participants have designed posters, made video appeals, and developed pieces set to be revealed on November 4, 2025.

Sowing Change

When speaking to Anya Gallaccio, she is out in a field in Kent, helping plant apple trees that will create a coiled garden. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is half artwork and half educational workshop. As she explains, the design and cultivation sessions have already incorporated learning about mathematics (calculating the distances between trees), genetics (discussing the genetic makeup), and history (mapping the journeys of how various cultivars came to the UK).

Several the apples were picked because they’ve got funny names such as the other unusual varieties. We have one apple that produces crimson liquid

“Several the apples were selected because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Duck’s Bill,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that produces red juice. Every one carries histories attached. The ancient variety was introduced by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that fell from a tree and struck Isaac Newton’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more consciously engaged of nature and the control we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you get at a supermarket, so I was urging them, when they go shopping, to check the packaging and see what they’re called and their origin. Hopefully it says Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Across the Country

In London, one artist’s project on disappearance will engage visitors searching a major gallery on a quest to find the ice masses that have been vanished in the past decade. Every ice sheet will be drawn on the museum surfaces using invisible ink. Each discovery, a chime will sound and a performance will be held to commemorate that specific ice mass.

At the same time, up in another location, a creative will be hosting a public show about our disconnection from the land, as well as organizing a shared meal, prepared with sustainable ingredients. In another city, a participant is sharing her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which community vocalists begin a project to sing plants back to health in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Children’s Voices

Following this approach, another participant will be engaging schoolchildren – on the actual event she is aiming to decorate a cultural venue in children’s artwork that document their aspirations and concerns for the future. “Children’s words and images are powerful because they’re not as inhibited as mature perspectives,” she says in her public appeal. “What children have to offer to the world is something distinctive and perhaps it can stimulate a awareness of obligation from everyone. Children are innocent. They have concerns for tomorrow. But this shouldn’t be about anxiety – it should be about optimism and us ensuring that they see a better world.”

Remembrance and Reflection

Paul Harfleet’s work also appeals to children. Drawing on past experience, his feathered initiative involves sketching winged creatures and then performing as birds – and for the initiative he is planning to tackle a local symbol. He is also staging a walking tour of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his ongoing series over the past twenty years. The project started after he experienced multiple occurrences of homophobic abuse on a one occasion. As a reaction, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the site of each occurrence and record it – the project has since spiralled to incorporate experiences reported by other people across the world. “I place the plants there but they fade quickly,” says Harfleet. “Reportedly wildlife enjoys them, so they’re a very temporary memorial.”

Harfleet chose the pansy not just for the obvious reason – it has long been a term of homophobic abuse – but also because its name derives from the French verb, penser, to think. “It became associated with a man who is contemplative, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The project on the event day is to place blooms at additional sites and also renew the tributes in places he has marked earlier, all the while conversing with those on the guided walk about the incidents and his recollections. “I’ve recorded quite a few after my previous work,” he says sadly.

Advancing Positively

He desires his work – and