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Back in 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his last important works. Known for creating self-destructive creations, Metzger had devoted his career to confronting global challenges from peace activism to ethical eating. Via a concise video message, he requested support for a worldwide initiative to celebrate the natural world.

“This is my appeal for your engagement in this worldwide call for a day of action to commemorate our planet on November 4th, 2015,” he declared, urging artists and creatives to stand against the steady eradication of living beings. “The mission is to remind people of the diversity and intricacy in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into realms that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Birth of Environmental Reflection

In this way Remember Nature was established, a day when artists across the country developed works to the escalating planetary emergency. One of the curators, who cared for Metzger in his later life, remembers his feeling of immediacy. “There was a strong sense of urgency for him at the close of his days,” she says. “I just said – let’s not mess around. Let’s not wait for financial support or for anyone to green light this. We should proceed.”

A Decade Later

A decade on, the project hasn’t quite incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had envisioned, but supporters think its influence can still be felt in initiatives like Culture Declares and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how artists approach the eco-friendliness of their work. For this purpose she is restaging it to celebrate its 10-year anniversary. Included in the featured creators taking part currently are A Man Called Adam and Anya Gallaccio. Each has designed posters, shared messages, and developed pieces set to be revealed on the fourth of November next year.

Cultivating Awareness

Interviewing one participant, she is working outdoors in a rural area, cultivating apple trees that will grow to form a coiled garden. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is part creative piece and somewhat instructive. As she explains, the preparation and sowing sessions have already incorporated learning about mathematics (measuring out the distances between trees), biology (discussing the apple’s DNA), and history (mapping the backgrounds of how different apples arrived in Britain).

Many of the apples were chosen because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Bloody Butcher. We have one apple that releases red juice

“A lot of the apples were chosen because they’ve got amusing labels such as the other unusual varieties,” she explains. “We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ scarlet-colored sap. Every one carries background narratives. The historical cultivar 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 influence we have over it. “For a lot of them, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was prompting them, next time they were out, to check the packaging and see their names and the source. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Artistic Responses Throughout Britain

Within the city, one artist’s project on disappearance will involve participants looking through Tate Modern on a mission to find the frozen formations that have been vanished in recent years. All formations will be drawn on the museum surfaces using invisible ink. Each discovery, a bell will ring and a recitation will be held to remember that particular glacier.

Meanwhile, up in another location, Maddi Nicholson will be putting on a open display about our separation from nature, as well as holding a shared meal, cooked from regional food. Further north, Uta Kögelsberger is sharing her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which community vocalists embark on a mission to sing plants back to health in a green space.

Young Insights

Following this approach, a featured creator will be collaborating with schoolchildren – on the actual event she is hoping to decorate a cultural venue in kids’ letters and drawings that capture their hopes and fears for the years ahead. “Youthful expressions are compelling because they’re not as restricted as grown-ups’,” she says in her call to action video. “The contributions of youth to the world is something quite unique and hopefully it will inspire a awareness of obligation from us all. Children are innocent. They have anxieties about what’s next. But it isn’t meant to be about anxiety – it should be about optimism and our responsibility that they get a future.”

Tributes and Thoughts

A participant’s work also resonates for children. As a former drag queen, his avian project involves drawing birds and then performing as birds – and for the event he is intending to represent an iconic figure. He is also staging a walking tour of the city, stopping at places that have been part of his long-term work over the past twenty years. The project commenced following he faced several events of discrimination on a one occasion. In response, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the spot where it happened 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 don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “Apparently birds consume them, so they’re a very temporary memorial.”

Harfleet chose the flower 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. “It became associated with a man who is contemplative, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The intention on 4 November is to place blooms at fresh spots and also refresh the memorials in places he has honored before, all the while discussing with those on the walking tour about the occurrences and his recollections. “We’ve seen quite a few since I last planted,” he says with regret.

Progressing Optimistically

The artist wishes his work – and