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Back in 2015, artist and activist Gustav Metzger launched one of his last significant endeavors. Known for introducing self-destructive creations, Metzger had spent a lifetime to addressing societal issues from nuclear disarmament to ethical eating. In a brief 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 commemorate our planet on the fourth of November, 2015,” he announced, encouraging cultural workers to oppose the continuing disappearance of flora and fauna. “Our responsibility is to help the public recall of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into territories that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Creation of Remember Nature

And so the environmental art day was established, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain produced pieces to the ongoing environmental crisis. One of the curators, who cared for Metzger in his later life, recalls his feeling of immediacy. “He had a strong sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “My advice was – let’s not mess around. Let’s not wait for funding or for anyone to approve this. We should proceed.”

Ten Years On

A decade on, the project did not incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had dreamed of, but supporters think its impact can still be seen in campaigns like Culture Declares and climate activism networks, as well as in how makers handle the eco-friendliness of their practices. That’s why she is restaging it to mark its 10-year anniversary. Included in the featured creators taking part currently are Cornelia Parker and Anya Gallaccio. They have all created visual art, made video appeals, and developed pieces set to be revealed on 4 November 2025.

Sowing Change

Interviewing one participant, she is working outdoors in a rural area, helping plant apple trees that will create a spiral-shaped orchard. Working with schoolchildren, her project is part creative piece and somewhat instructive. According to her, the planning and planting sessions have already included learning about maths (spacing the planting intervals), biology (studying the hereditary traits), and origins (tracing the stories of how various cultivars came to the UK).

Several the apples were chosen because they’ve got funny names such as the Bloody Butcher. We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ scarcolored sap

“A lot of the apples were selected because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Duck’s Bill,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ scarlet-colored sap. Each has histories attached. The ancient variety was imported by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that fell from a tree and landed on the physicist’s head.”

Gallaccio wanted the children to be more consciously engaged of the environment and the control we have over it. “For a lot of them, apples were just things you get at a supermarket, so I was prompting them, when they go shopping, to read the label and see the variety and their origin. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Artistic Responses Nationwide

In London, a participant’s Book of Loss will involve participants looking through a major gallery on a mission to find the seven major glaciers that have been disappeared in recent years. Each glacier will be depicted on the museum surfaces using ultraviolet markers. Whenever one is found, a alert will occur and a reading will be held to remember that particular glacier.

Meanwhile, up in another location, a creative will be presenting a public show about our alienation from the environment, as well as hosting a shared meal, prepared with regional food. In another city, an artist is sharing her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which community vocalists embark on a mission to perform for vegetation in a local park.

Children’s Voices

Like Gallaccio, a featured creator will be engaging schoolchildren – on the day itself she is aiming to cover an art space in children’s artwork that capture their dreams and worries for the years ahead. “Kids’ art are compelling because they’re not as trammelled as mature perspectives,” she says in her public appeal. “The contributions of youth to the world is something truly special and hopefully it will provoke a sense of responsibility from us all. Kids are unbiased. They have fears about the future. But let’s not make it about worry – it should be about positivity and our responsibility that they get a future.”

Memorials and Memory

Paul Harfleet’s work also appeals to children. As a former drag queen, his avian project involves illustrating avians and then embodying them – and for the initiative he is intending to tackle an iconic figure. He is also organizing a walking tour of the city, stopping at places that have been part of his Pansy Project over the past twenty years. The project started after he endured multiple occurrences of discrimination on a particular day. As a reaction, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the spot where it happened and document it – the project has since grown to cover events experienced by other people across the world. “The flowers remain there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “It seems birds consume them, so they’re a very temporary memorial.”

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

The project 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 walking tour about the events and his recollections. “There’s been quite a few after my previous work,” he says sadly.

Advancing Positively

Harfleet hopes his work – and