🔗 Share this article

During 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger launched one of his last major projects. Recognized for pioneering auto-destructive art, Metzger had devoted his career to addressing societal issues from nuclear disarmament 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 involvement in this worldwide call for a day of action to reflect on the environment on the fourth of November, 2015,” he stated, inviting artists and creatives to resist the continuing disappearance of flora and fauna. “Our responsibility is to help the public recall of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into realms that are naturally imaginative.”

The Birth of Nature Remembrance

In this way Remember Nature came into being, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain produced pieces to the ongoing environmental crisis. Jo Joelson, who worked closely with Metzger in his last days, recalls his drive for action. “He had a great sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “I just said – let’s not mess around. Let’s not wait for funding or for anyone to approve this. We should proceed.”

A Decade Later

Ten years later, Remember Nature hasn’t quite incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but supporters think its influence can still be observed in campaigns like Culture Declares and climate activism networks, as well as in how artists approach the sustainability of their practices. For this purpose she is reviving it to celebrate its decade milestone. Included in the 18 lead artists participating now are Yu-Chen Wang and Anya Gallaccio. All participants have produced imagery, shared messages, and developed pieces set to be presented on 4 November 2025.

Cultivating Awareness

Interviewing one participant, she is working outdoors in the countryside, helping plant apple trees that will create a circular grove. Engaging schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and half educational workshop. According to her, the preparation and sowing sessions have already involved learning about measurements (measuring out the planting intervals), genetics (exploring the apple’s DNA), and origins (mapping the backgrounds of how distinct varieties came to the UK).

Many of the apples were picked because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Duck’s Bill. We have one apple that releases red juice

“Several the apples were chosen because they’ve got amusing labels such as the other unusual varieties,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that produces crimson liquid. Every one carries background narratives. The ancient variety was introduced by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that fell from a tree and landed on the scientist’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 find in a supermarket, so I was prompting them, on their next shopping trip, to read the label and see what they’re called and the source. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Cultural Projects Throughout Britain

At the capital, one artist’s work about extinction will engage visitors exploring an art institution on a mission to find the ice masses that have been vanished in recent years. All formations will be illustrated on the exhibition spaces using special pens. Whenever one is found, a bell will ring and a reading will be conducted to honor that particular glacier.

Meanwhile, up in a northern town, Maddi Nicholson will be putting on a open display about our disconnection from the land, as well as organizing a community dinner, prepared with regional food. In another city, an artist is streaming her musical project, in which regional performers embark on a mission to sing plants back to health in a green space.

Youth Perspectives

Like Gallaccio, a featured creator will be working with schoolchildren – on the scheduled date she is planning to fill a cultural venue in children’s artwork that express their aspirations and concerns for the years ahead. “Children’s words and images are compelling because they’re not as trammelled as grown-ups’,” she says in her call to action video. “Young people’s input to the world is something quite unique and perhaps it can provoke a feeling of duty from each person. Children are innocent. They have fears about the future. But let’s not make it about worry – it should be about optimism and us ensuring that they see a better world.”

Remembrance and Reflection

A participant’s work also appeals to children. With a background in performance, his feathered initiative involves sketching winged creatures and then performing as birds – and for the initiative he is aiming to tackle a local symbol. He is also staging a itinerant journey of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his ongoing series over the past twenty years. That ongoing series began when he endured three incidents of homophobic abuse on a one occasion. To counter this, Harfleet decided to plant a pansy at the site of each occurrence and photograph it – the project has since grown to cover events reported by other people across the world. “I place the plants there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “Reportedly wildlife enjoys them, so they’re a very temporary memorial.”

The artist selected the pansy not just for the clear connection – it has long been a slur – but also because its etymology comes from the French verb, penser, to think. “It became associated with a man who is reflective, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The plan on Remember Nature day is to plant pansies at fresh spots and also refresh the memorials in places he has honored before, all the while conversing with those on the itinerant journey about the occurrences and his personal experiences. “We’ve seen quite a few since I last planted,” he says with regret.

Advancing Positively

Harfleet hopes his work – and