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In 2015, artist and activist Gustav Metzger launched one of his last major projects. Recognized for pioneering self-destructive creations, Metzger had spent a lifetime to addressing societal issues from anti-nuclear advocacy to ethical eating. Via a concise video message, he requested support for a worldwide initiative to remember nature.

“I call upon you for your participation in this worldwide call for a day of action to reflect on the environment on November 4th, 2015,” he stated, inviting cultural workers to resist the continuing disappearance of flora and fauna. “Our task is to help the public recall of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so art will enter realms that are naturally imaginative.”

The Inception of Remember Nature

Thus the environmental art day came into being, a day when creatives nationwide produced pieces to the ongoing environmental crisis. An organizer, who worked closely with Metzger in his later life, remembers his feeling of immediacy. “There was a profound sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “I just said – we must act now. Let’s not wait for sponsorship or for anyone to authorize this. We should proceed.”

After Ten Years

Ten years later, the project hasn’t quite incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had envisioned, but Joelson believes its influence can still be seen in campaigns like artist-led declarations and environmental protests, as well as in how creatives consider the environmental impact of their work. For this purpose she is reviving it to celebrate its decade milestone. Among the 18 lead artists taking part currently are Cornelia Parker and Anya Gallaccio. All participants have produced imagery, recorded calls to action, and produced installations set to be revealed on November 4, 2025.

Cultivating Awareness

When speaking to Anya Gallaccio, she is working outdoors in the countryside, helping plant apple trees that will create a spiral-shaped orchard. Engaging schoolchildren, her project is part creative piece and half educational workshop. According to her, the preparation and sowing sessions have already incorporated learning about measurements (spacing the planting intervals), biology (discussing the apple’s DNA), and geography (mapping the stories of how distinct varieties came to the UK).

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

“Many of the apples were chosen because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Duck’s Bill,” says Gallaccio. “We have one apple that produces red juice. Each has histories attached. The decio apple was brought over by the Romans. The local breed is the apple that dropped off a tree and hit Isaac Newton’s head.”

The artist aimed the children to be more thoughtfully connected of nature and the control we have over it. “For a lot of them, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was encouraging them, on their next shopping trip, to read the label and see the variety and the source. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Cultural Projects Throughout Britain

In London, one artist’s work about extinction will include attendees looking through a major gallery on a journey to find the frozen formations that have been vanished in recent years. Every ice sheet will be depicted on the gallery’s windows and walls using invisible ink. Each discovery, a chime will sound and a recitation will be conducted to remember that particular glacier.

Meanwhile, up in another location, a creative will be hosting a public show about our alienation from the environment, as well as holding a shared meal, cooked from regional food. In another city, an artist is streaming her environmental performance, in which community vocalists undertake a task to sing plants back to health in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Young Insights

Like Gallaccio, Cornelia Parker will be working with schoolchildren – on the day itself she is planning to fill a cultural venue in kids’ letters and drawings that capture their dreams and worries for the future. “Youthful expressions are compelling because they’re not as inhibited as grown-ups’,” she says in her call to action video. “What children have to offer to the world is something quite unique and it may stimulate a feeling of duty from us all. Youth is pure. They have concerns for tomorrow. But let’s not make it about fear – it should be about optimism and making sure that they get a future.”

Tributes and Thoughts

A participant’s work also appeals to children. As a former drag queen, his avian project involves sketching winged creatures and then performing as birds – and for the event he is planning to represent an iconic figure. He is also staging a itinerant journey of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his ongoing series over the past twenty years. This endeavor commenced following he endured multiple occurrences of homophobic abuse on a particular day. As a reaction, Harfleet decided to plant a pansy at the location of every incident and photograph it – the project has since expanded to include incidents shared by other people across the world. “I place the plants there but they fade quickly,” says Harfleet. “It seems pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

Harfleet chose the bloom not just for the clear connection – it has long been a term of homophobic abuse – but also because its name derives from the French verb, penser, to think. “People connected it with a man who is reflective, 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 renew the tributes in places he has previously memorialised, all the while discussing with those on the walking tour about the occurrences and his recollections. “I’ve recorded quite a few after my previous work,” he says sadly.

Progressing Optimistically

He desires his work – and