🔗 Share this article

Back in 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger initiated one of his ultimate important works. Famed for introducing self-destructive creations, Metzger had dedicated his life to responding to human struggles from peace activism to ethical eating. In a brief video message, he issued a call for a worldwide initiative to celebrate the natural world.

“I call upon you for your participation in this worldwide call for a day of action to reflect on the environment on the fourth of November, 2015,” he stated, encouraging artists and creatives to resist the continuing disappearance of living beings. “The mission is to make audiences aware of the diversity and intricacy in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into domains that are naturally imaginative.”

The Creation of Remember Nature

In this way Remember Nature was established, a day when artists across the country created responses to the ongoing environmental crisis. An organizer, who worked closely with Metzger in his last days, remembers his feeling of immediacy. “He had a profound sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “My advice was – we must act now. No need to pause for financial support or for anyone to authorize this. We should proceed.”

A Decade Later

A decade on, Remember Nature may not have incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had dreamed of, but supporters think its impact can still be seen in movements like cultural advocacy groups and climate activism networks, as well as in how artists approach the sustainability of their practices. For this purpose she is restaging it to mark its 10-year anniversary. Included in the key participants involved this time are Yu-Chen Wang and other notable figures. They have all designed posters, made video appeals, and produced installations set to be unveiled on 4 November 2025.

Cultivating Awareness

When speaking to Anya Gallaccio, she is out in a field in a rural area, helping plant apple trees that will create a circular grove. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is part creative piece and part learning experience. As she explains, the planning and planting sessions have already involved learning about mathematics (calculating the gaps in the orchard), science (exploring the hereditary traits), and geography (tracing the backgrounds of how distinct varieties arrived in Britain).

Several the apples were selected because they’ve got funny names such as the other unusual varieties. We have one apple that produces red juice

“Many of the apples were picked because they’ve got funny names such as the Duck’s Bill,” she explains. “We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ red juice. They all have stories behind them. The ancient variety was introduced by the Romans. The local breed is the apple that dropped off a tree and landed on the scientist’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more actively aware of the environment and the control we have over it. “For a lot of them, apples were just things you buy from a supermarket, so I was urging them, next time they were out, to look on the bag and see their names and the source. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Artistic Responses Nationwide

Within the city, one artist’s project on disappearance will include attendees looking through an art institution on a journey to find the seven major glaciers that have been vanished in the past decade. Each glacier will be illustrated on the gallery’s windows and walls using special pens. Each discovery, a chime will sound and a performance will be performed to remember that specific ice mass.

Meanwhile, up in another location, an artist will be hosting a free exhibition about our disconnection from the land, as well as hosting a community dinner, made using regional food. In another city, a participant is streaming her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which community vocalists undertake a task to perform for vegetation in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Youth Perspectives

Following this approach, Cornelia Parker will be engaging schoolchildren – on the actual event she is hoping to cover a cultural venue in youth creations that express their hopes and fears for the future. “Children’s words and images are impactful because they’re not as trammelled as grown-ups’,” she says in her recorded message. “Young people’s input to the world is something truly special and perhaps it can provoke a awareness of obligation from everyone. Children are innocent. They have fears about the future. But this shouldn’t be about anxiety – it should be about optimism and making sure that they have a tomorrow.”

Memorials and Memory

A participant’s work also appeals to children. Drawing on past experience, his avian project involves drawing birds and then performing as birds – and for Remember Nature day he is intending to tackle a local symbol. He is also staging a guided walk of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his long-term work over the last two decades. This endeavor started after he faced multiple occurrences of homophobic abuse on a one occasion. To counter this, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the location of every incident and record it – the project has since grown to incorporate experiences experienced by other people across the world. “The flowers remain there but they fade quickly,” says Harfleet. “It seems wildlife enjoys them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

Harfleet chose the pansy not just for the obvious reason – it has long been a derogatory label – but also because its etymology comes from the French verb, penser, to think. “People connected it with a man who is thoughtful, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The project on the event day is to plant pansies at fresh spots and also renew the tributes in places he has previously memorialised, all the while discussing with those on the itinerant journey about the events and his memories of them. “There’s been quite a few following earlier installations,” he says sadly.

Progressing Optimistically

He desires his work – and