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During 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his final significant endeavors. Recognized for creating art that erases itself, Metzger had devoted his career to confronting global challenges from peace activism to plant-based living. Through a short video message, he issued a call for a worldwide initiative to celebrate the natural world.

“I call upon you for your engagement in this worldwide call for a day of action to remember nature on the fourth of November, 2015,” he announced, urging artists and creatives to oppose the ongoing loss of flora and fauna. “Our task is to make audiences aware of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so art will enter domains that are inherently creative.”

The Creation of Environmental Reflection

And so Remember Nature was born, a day when creatives nationwide produced pieces to the escalating planetary emergency. One of the curators, who worked closely with Metzger in his last days, remembers his sense of urgency. “I sensed a great sense of urgency for him at the close of his days,” she says. “I urged him – don’t delay. We shouldn’t hold back for funding or for anyone to authorize this. We should proceed.”

A Decade Later

A decade on, the initiative may not have incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but supporters think its influence can still be felt in movements like artist-led declarations and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how makers handle the sustainability of their methods. That’s why she is reviving it to commemorate its ten-year mark. Part of the 18 lead artists taking part currently are Cornelia Parker and Anya Gallaccio. They have all produced imagery, recorded calls to action, and produced installations set to be revealed on the fourth of November next year.

Planting Hope

In conversation with one participant, she is on site in Kent, cultivating apple trees that will create a spiral-shaped orchard. Engaging schoolchildren, her project is part creative piece and part learning experience. As she explains, the planning and planting sessions have already involved learning about measurements (calculating the planting intervals), science (exploring the apple’s DNA), and geography (researching the journeys of how various cultivars arrived in Britain).

A lot of the apples were chosen because they’ve got amusing labels such as the other unusual varieties. We have one apple that produces crimson liquid

“A lot of the apples were picked because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Bloody Butcher,” says Gallaccio. “We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ scarlet-colored sap. Every one carries background narratives. The ancient variety was imported by the Romans. The local breed is the apple that descended from a tree and struck the physicist’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more actively aware of the natural world and the power we have over it. “To many of them, apples were just things you get at a supermarket, so I was prompting them, next time they were out, to look on the bag and see what they’re called and where they were grown. Hopefully it says Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Across the Country

Within the city, Youngsook Choi’s project on disappearance will include attendees searching Tate Modern on a journey to find the seven major glaciers that have been disappeared in recent years. Every ice sheet will be depicted on the gallery’s windows and walls using special pens. Whenever one is found, a alert will occur and a recitation will be held to remember that individual formation.

Elsewhere, up in Barrow-in-Furness, a creative will be presenting a open display about our alienation from the environment, as well as hosting a community dinner, made using sustainable ingredients. Over in Newcastle, Uta Kögelsberger is streaming her environmental performance, in which local singers begin a project to perform for vegetation in a green space.

Children’s Voices

Like Gallaccio, Cornelia Parker will be working with schoolchildren – on the day itself she is hoping to decorate a cultural venue in kids’ letters and drawings that document their hopes and fears for the future. “Youthful expressions are powerful because they’re not as restricted as adults’,” she says in her call to action video. “Young people’s input to the world is something distinctive and it may inspire a feeling of duty from us all. Youth is pure. They have fears about the future. But this shouldn’t be about anxiety – it should be about optimism and us ensuring that they have a tomorrow.”

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 dressing up as them – and for the initiative he is intending to tackle an iconic figure. He is also staging a itinerant journey of the city, stopping at places that have been part of his long-term work over the past twenty years. That ongoing series began when he faced multiple occurrences of discrimination on a particular day. To counter this, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the spot where it happened and document it – the project has since expanded to include incidents experienced by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “Reportedly birds consume them, so they’re a short-lived memorial.”

Harfleet chose the bloom not just for the direct association – it has long been a derogatory label – but also because its origin is the French verb, penser, to think. “It was linked to a man who is reflective, and that, of course, is a negative trait,” he says.

The project on the event day is to sow flowers at additional sites and also renew the tributes in places he has previously memorialised, all the while talking to those on the walking tour about the events and his personal experiences. “We’ve seen quite a few after my previous work,” he says sadly.

Advancing Positively

Harfleet hopes his work – and