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In 2015, artist and activist Gustav Metzger launched one of his last major projects. Famed for pioneering auto-destructive art, Metzger had dedicated his life to responding to global challenges from nuclear disarmament to ethical eating. Via a concise video message, he issued a call for a international event to celebrate the natural world.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your participation in this international summons for a day of action to reflect on the environment on November 4th, 2015,” he declared, encouraging makers and thinkers to stand against the steady eradication of living beings. “Our task is to help the public recall of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore domains that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Inception of Remember Nature

And so the Nature Remembrance initiative was born, a day when artists across the country developed works to the ongoing environmental crisis. An organizer, who cared for Metzger in his later life, remembers his drive for action. “There was a profound sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “I urged him – we must act now. No need to pause for sponsorship or for anyone to approve this. Let’s just do it.”

A Decade Later

Ten years later, the initiative hasn’t quite triggered the broad uprising across the arts that Metzger had envisioned, but Joelson believes its impact can still be felt in movements like cultural advocacy groups and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how artists approach the eco-friendliness of their practices. For this purpose she is restaging it to mark its ten-year mark. Part of the featured creators involved this time are Yu-Chen Wang and other notable figures. All participants have created visual art, made video appeals, and created artworks set to be presented on November 4, 2025.

Cultivating Awareness

Interviewing one participant, she is on site in the countryside, cultivating apple trees that will create a circular grove. Working with schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and part learning experience. As she explains, the design and cultivation sessions have already incorporated learning about measurements (calculating the distances between trees), genetics (discussing the apple’s DNA), and geography (mapping the stories of how different apples arrived in Britain).

A lot of the apples were selected because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Bloody Butcher. We have one apple that releases red juice

“Several the apples were picked because they’ve got funny names such as the Duck’s Bill,” says Gallaccio. “We have one apple that releases red juice. Each has histories attached. The decio apple was brought over by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that fell from a tree and landed on the physicist’s head.”

The artist aimed the children to be more consciously engaged of the environment and the influence we have over it. “For a lot of them, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was encouraging them, when they go shopping, to read the label and see the variety and their origin. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Artistic Responses Across the Country

At the capital, Youngsook Choi’s project on disappearance will include attendees exploring a major gallery on a journey to find the frozen formations that have been vanished in recent years. All formations will be illustrated on the museum surfaces using ultraviolet markers. When located, a alert will occur and a performance will be conducted to commemorate that individual formation.

Meanwhile, up in another location, an artist will be presenting a free exhibition about our separation from nature, as well as hosting a communal feast, cooked from organic, local produce. In another city, a participant is broadcasting her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which local singers undertake a task to sing plants back to health in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Young Insights

Following this approach, a featured creator will be engaging schoolchildren – on the day itself she is aiming to fill a cultural venue in youth creations that document their hopes and fears for the future. “Kids’ art are compelling because they’re not as restricted as grown-ups’,” she says in her public appeal. “Young people’s input to the world is something truly special and hopefully it will provoke a feeling of duty from each person. Children are innocent. They have concerns for tomorrow. But let’s not make it about worry – it should be about optimism and us ensuring that they get a future.”

Memorials and Memory

Another artist’s work also resonates for children. Drawing on past experience, his avian project involves drawing birds and then dressing up as them – and for Remember Nature day he is aiming to address a local symbol. He is also organizing a itinerant journey of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his Pansy Project over the recent decades. This endeavor commenced following he faced multiple occurrences of prejudice on a particular day. In response, Harfleet decided to plant a pansy at the location of every incident and document it – the project has since expanded to include incidents reported by other people across the world. “I place the plants there but they fade quickly,” says Harfleet. “Apparently pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

He picked the flower not just for the obvious reason – it has long been a term of homophobic abuse – but also because its etymology comes from the French verb, penser, to think. “People connected it with a man who is reflective, and that, of course, is a terrible thing,” he says.

The plan on the event day is to place blooms at new locations and also replant flowers in places he has previously memorialised, all the while discussing with those on the itinerant journey about the incidents and his recollections. “There’s been quite a few after my previous work,” he says with regret.

Progressing Optimistically

Harfleet hopes his work – and