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During 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger launched one of his last important works. Recognized for introducing art that erases itself, Metzger had spent a lifetime to addressing global challenges from nuclear disarmament to vegetarianism. Via a concise video message, he issued a call for a worldwide initiative to honor the environment.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your engagement in this worldwide call for a day of action to reflect on the environment on November 4th, 2015,” he announced, encouraging artists and creatives to stand against the ongoing loss of species. “The mission is to help the public recall of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so art will enter territories that are naturally imaginative.”

The Creation of Nature Remembrance

And so the Nature Remembrance initiative came into being, a day when artists across the country developed works to the unfolding climate catastrophe. Jo Joelson, who cared for Metzger in his final years, remembers his feeling of immediacy. “I sensed a great sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “I just said – don’t delay. Let’s not wait for financial support or for anyone to green light this. Take action immediately.”

A Decade Later

After ten years, the project may not have triggered the broad uprising across the arts that Metzger had envisioned, but Joelson believes its influence can still be observed in campaigns like Culture Declares and environmental protests, as well as in how makers handle the sustainability of their practices. For this purpose she is reviving it to mark its 10-year anniversary. Included in the featured creators participating now are Yu-Chen Wang and prominent artists. They have all created visual art, recorded calls to action, and produced installations set to be revealed on 4 November 2025.

Planting Hope

Interviewing the artist, she is out in a field in the countryside, cultivating apple trees that will create a circular grove. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and half educational workshop. As she explains, the planning and planting sessions have already included learning about maths (measuring out the distances between trees), science (exploring the hereditary traits), and origins (researching the backgrounds of how various cultivars arrived in Britain).

Several the apples were chosen because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Duck’s Bill. We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ red juice

“A lot of the apples were selected because they’ve got funny names such as the Bloody Butcher,” says Gallaccio. “We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ scarlet-colored sap. Every one carries background narratives. The historical cultivar was brought over by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that fell from a tree and struck the scientist’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more thoughtfully connected of the natural world and the power we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was encouraging them, when they go shopping, to check the packaging and see what they’re called and where they were grown. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Artistic Responses Throughout Britain

Within the city, a participant’s project on disappearance will engage visitors looking through a major gallery on a quest to find the seven major glaciers that have been vanished in recent years. Every ice sheet will be drawn on the exhibition spaces using special pens. Whenever one is found, a bell will ring and a reading will be held to commemorate that specific ice mass.

Meanwhile, up in a northern town, an artist will be hosting a open display about our alienation from the environment, as well as holding a communal feast, cooked from organic, local produce. Over in Newcastle, Uta Kögelsberger is sharing her musical project, in which community vocalists embark on a mission to use music to heal flora in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Young Insights

Similar to other artists, a featured creator will be engaging schoolchildren – on the day itself she is aiming to cover a cultural venue in kids’ letters and drawings that capture their aspirations and concerns for the years ahead. “Kids’ art are impactful because they’re not as inhibited as mature perspectives,” she says in her recorded message. “Young people’s input to the world is something distinctive and hopefully it will provoke a sense of responsibility from us all. Children are innocent. They have anxieties about what’s next. But let’s not make it about anxiety – it should be about positivity and our responsibility that they get a future.”

Tributes and Thoughts

Paul Harfleet’s work also connects with children. As a former drag queen, his Birds Can Fly involves drawing birds and then performing as birds – and for the initiative he is intending to address Liverpool’s famous Liver bird. He is also conducting a itinerant journey of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his ongoing series over the recent decades. The project commenced following he endured multiple occurrences of homophobic abuse on a particular day. To counter this, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the spot where it happened and photograph it – the project has since expanded to cover events shared by other people across the world. “The flowers remain there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “Reportedly pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a short-lived memorial.”

The artist selected the bloom not just for the clear connection – it has long been a slur – but also because its origin is the French verb, penser, to think. “People connected it with a man who is thoughtful, and that, of course, is a negative trait,” he says.

The project on Remember Nature day is to sow flowers at new locations and also refresh the memorials in places he has previously memorialised, all the while conversing with those on the walking tour about the incidents and his memories of them. “There’s been quite a few since I last planted,” he says mournfully.

Progressing Optimistically

The artist wishes his work – and