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During 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger initiated one of his last important works. Known for introducing auto-destructive art, Metzger had spent a lifetime to addressing societal issues from nuclear disarmament to plant-based living. Via a concise video message, he issued a call for a global day of action to celebrate the natural world.

“This is my appeal for your involvement in this global appeal for a day of action to reflect on the environment on the fourth of November, 2015,” he announced, urging artists and creatives to resist the ongoing loss of flora and fauna. “Our task is to help the public recall of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into territories that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Birth of Nature Remembrance

And so Remember Nature came into being, a day when artists across the country produced pieces to the escalating planetary emergency. One of the curators, who cared for Metzger in his later life, notes his drive for action. “There was a strong sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “My advice was – don’t delay. No need to pause for sponsorship or for anyone to approve this. Let’s just do it.”

Ten Years On

Ten years later, Remember Nature may not have triggered the broad uprising across the arts that Metzger had dreamed of, but supporters think its legacy can still be felt in campaigns like artist-led declarations and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how creatives consider the eco-friendliness of their work. For this purpose she is reviving it to mark its 10-year anniversary. Part of the key participants participating now are Cornelia Parker and Anya Gallaccio. All participants have designed posters, shared messages, and created artworks set to be presented on the fourth of November next year.

Sowing Change

In conversation with Anya Gallaccio, she is on site in a rural area, cultivating apple trees that will grow to form a spiral-shaped orchard. Working with schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and half educational workshop. According to her, the planning and planting sessions have already included learning about measurements (calculating the gaps in the orchard), biology (studying the genetic makeup), and origins (researching the stories of how various cultivars arrived in Britain).

A lot of the apples were picked because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Duck’s Bill. We have one apple that releases crimson liquid

“A lot of the apples were chosen because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Bloody Butcher,” she explains. “We have one apple that releases scarlet-colored sap. Every one carries histories attached. The ancient variety was imported by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that dropped off a tree and landed on the scientist’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more consciously engaged 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 prompting them, on their next shopping trip, to check the packaging and see their names and their origin. Hopefully it says Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Throughout Britain

At the capital, a participant’s Book of Loss will include attendees searching a major gallery on a journey to find the ice masses that have been lost in the past decade. All formations will be depicted on the museum surfaces using invisible ink. When located, a chime will sound and a performance will be conducted to commemorate that specific ice mass.

Meanwhile, up in another location, a creative will be presenting a free exhibition about our separation from nature, as well as organizing a communal feast, prepared with organic, local produce. Further north, a participant is streaming her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which local singers begin a project to sing plants back to health in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Children’s Voices

Like Gallaccio, another participant will be engaging schoolchildren – on the day itself she is hoping to fill Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in kids’ letters and drawings that capture their aspirations and concerns for the tomorrow. “Kids’ art are impactful because they’re not as restricted as grown-ups’,” she says in her recorded message. “What children have to offer to the world is something quite unique and it may provoke a awareness of obligation from everyone. Kids are unbiased. They have anxieties about what’s next. But this shouldn’t be about fear – it should be about hope and making sure that they have a tomorrow.”

Memorials and Memory

Paul Harfleet’s work also appeals to children. With a background in performance, his avian project involves sketching winged creatures and then embodying them – and for the event he is planning to represent Liverpool’s famous Liver bird. He is also conducting a guided walk of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his long-term work over the recent decades. That ongoing series commenced following he experienced multiple occurrences of discrimination on a particular day. In response, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the location of every incident and record it – the project has since expanded to include incidents reported by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “It seems pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

He picked the bloom not just for the clear connection – it has long been a derogatory label – but also because its name derives from the French verb, penser, to think. “It was linked to a man who is reflective, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The project on the event day is to sow flowers at fresh spots and also replant flowers in places he has marked earlier, all the while talking to those on the itinerant journey about the incidents and his memories of them. “There’s been quite a few since I last planted,” he says sadly.

Progressing Optimistically

He desires his work – and