🔗 Share this article

During 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger initiated one of his last major projects. Famed for creating art that erases itself, Metzger had dedicated his life to addressing societal issues from anti-nuclear advocacy to plant-based living. In a brief video message, he requested support for a international event to remember nature.

“This is my appeal for your engagement in this global appeal for a day of action to commemorate our planet on November 4th, 2015,” he stated, encouraging artists and creatives to resist the ongoing loss of species. “The mission is to remind people of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore territories that are naturally imaginative.”

The Inception of Remember Nature

Thus the environmental art day was established, a day when artists across the country developed works to the escalating planetary emergency. Jo Joelson, who worked closely with Metzger in his last days, notes his feeling of immediacy. “He had a profound sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “I urged him – we must act now. We shouldn’t hold back for funding or for anyone to green light this. Let’s just do it.”

Ten Years On

A decade on, Remember Nature may not have incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had envisioned, but supporters think its impact can still be seen in initiatives like cultural advocacy groups and environmental protests, as well as in how creatives consider the eco-friendliness of their methods. For this purpose she is relaunching it to celebrate its decade milestone. Among the 18 lead artists taking part currently are Yu-Chen Wang and prominent artists. Each has created visual art, recorded calls to action, and developed pieces set to be revealed on 4 November 2025.

Sowing Change

In conversation with the artist, she is working outdoors in a rural area, assisting with planting apple trees that will grow to form a spiral-shaped orchard. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and part learning experience. As she explains, the preparation and sowing sessions have already included learning about mathematics (measuring out the gaps in the orchard), science (discussing the apple’s DNA), and geography (researching the backgrounds of how various cultivars were introduced to England).

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

“Many of the apples were selected because they’ve got funny names such as the Duck’s Bill,” she explains. “We have one apple that produces crimson liquid. Each has background narratives. The decio apple was introduced by the Romans. The local breed is the apple that descended from a tree and landed on the scientist’s head.”

Gallaccio wanted the children to be more actively aware of the natural world and the power we have over it. “For a lot of them, apples were just things you buy from a supermarket, so I was encouraging them, when they go shopping, to read the label and see the variety and where they were grown. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Nationwide

At the capital, Youngsook Choi’s work about extinction will engage visitors exploring a major gallery on a quest to find the seven major glaciers that have been lost in the past decade. Each glacier will be depicted on the gallery’s windows and walls using ultraviolet markers. Each discovery, a chime will sound and a recitation will be performed to commemorate that specific ice mass.

Meanwhile, up in Barrow-in-Furness, an artist will be putting on a open display about our separation from nature, as well as holding a shared meal, cooked from sustainable ingredients. In another city, Uta Kögelsberger is streaming her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which local singers undertake a task to use music to heal flora in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Youth Perspectives

Following this approach, a featured creator will be engaging schoolchildren – on the scheduled date she is hoping to fill Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in kids’ letters and drawings that document their aspirations and concerns for the years ahead. “Children’s words and images are powerful because they’re not as trammelled as adults’,” she says in her public appeal. “The contributions of youth to the world is something distinctive and perhaps it can provoke a sense of responsibility from us all. Kids are unbiased. They have fears about the future. But this shouldn’t be about worry – it should be about positivity and us ensuring that they get a future.”

Tributes and Thoughts

Paul Harfleet’s work also connects with children. Drawing on past experience, his feathered initiative involves drawing birds and then dressing up as them – and for the initiative he is intending to represent an iconic figure. He is also conducting a guided walk of the city, stopping at places that have been part of his Pansy Project over the last two decades. This endeavor started after he endured multiple occurrences of homophobic abuse on a one occasion. In response, Harfleet decided to plant a pansy at the spot where it happened and document it – the project has since expanded to cover events experienced by other people across the world. “I place the plants there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “Reportedly wildlife enjoys them, so they’re a short-lived memorial.”

He picked the bloom not just for the direct association – 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 terrible thing,” he says.

The intention on the event day is to place blooms at additional sites and also renew the tributes in places he has previously memorialised, all the while discussing with those on the guided walk about the incidents and his memories of them. “There’s been quite a few following earlier installations,” he says with regret.

Advancing Positively

He desires his work – and