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During 2015, artist and activist Gustav Metzger initiated one of his last major projects. Known for creating auto-destructive art, Metzger had dedicated his life to addressing global challenges from nuclear disarmament to vegetarianism. Via a concise video message, he issued a call for a international event to celebrate the natural world.

“This is my appeal for your participation in this international summons for a day of action to commemorate our planet on the fourth of November, 2015,” he announced, urging makers and thinkers to resist the ongoing loss of flora and fauna. “Our responsibility is to help the public recall of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore territories that are naturally imaginative.”

The Birth of Environmental Reflection

And so the Nature Remembrance initiative came into being, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain developed works to the escalating planetary emergency. Jo Joelson, who supported Metzger in his later life, remembers his sense of urgency. “He had a great sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “I just said – let’s not mess around. No need to pause for financial support or for anyone to approve this. Take action immediately.”

After Ten Years

After ten years, Remember Nature hasn’t quite sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had envisioned, but supporters think its influence can still be felt in movements like artist-led declarations and environmental protests, as well as in how creatives consider the environmental impact of their practices. That’s why she is restaging it to commemorate its ten-year mark. Included in the 18 lead artists involved this time are Yu-Chen Wang and prominent artists. They have all created visual art, made video appeals, and developed pieces set to be revealed on November 4, 2025.

Sowing Change

Interviewing Anya Gallaccio, she is out in a field in the countryside, helping plant apple trees that will create a circular grove. Working with schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and somewhat instructive. She describes, the planning and planting sessions have already included learning about maths (calculating the distances between trees), genetics (exploring the apple’s DNA), and geography (researching the journeys of how distinct varieties were introduced to England).

Many of the apples were selected because they’ve got funny names such as the other unusual varieties. We have one apple that produces crimson liquid

“Several the apples were chosen because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Bloody Butcher,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that produces crimson liquid. They all have stories behind them. The historical cultivar was brought over by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that fell from a tree and hit the scientist’s head.”

The artist aimed the children to be more thoughtfully connected of the environment and the power we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was encouraging them, on their next shopping trip, to look on the bag and see what they’re called and the source. Hopefully it says Kent!”

Artistic Responses Throughout Britain

At the capital, one artist’s project on disappearance will engage visitors exploring Tate Modern on a mission to find the seven major glaciers that have been disappeared in the past decade. All formations will be drawn on the exhibition spaces using ultraviolet markers. When located, a chime will sound and a reading will be performed to remember that individual formation.

At the same time, up in Barrow-in-Furness, an artist will be putting on a open display about our separation from nature, as well as hosting a community dinner, cooked from sustainable ingredients. In another city, a participant is streaming her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which regional performers embark on a mission to use music to heal flora in a green space.

Young Insights

Following this approach, another participant will be collaborating with schoolchildren – on the actual event she is planning to decorate Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in youth creations that express their aspirations and concerns for the years ahead. “Youthful expressions are compelling because they’re not as restricted as adults’,” she says in her call to action video. “What children have to offer to the world is something quite unique and hopefully it will stimulate a feeling of duty from us all. Youth is pure. They have anxieties about what’s next. But it isn’t meant to be about worry – it should be about hope and our responsibility that they see a better world.”

Remembrance and Reflection

A participant’s work also resonates for children. Drawing on past experience, his feathered initiative involves sketching winged creatures and then dressing up as them – and for the event he is intending to tackle a local symbol. He is also organizing a itinerant journey of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his Pansy Project over the recent decades. This endeavor started after he experienced several events of prejudice on a one occasion. As a reaction, Harfleet decided to plant a pansy at the site of each occurrence and record it – the project has since grown to incorporate experiences reported by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “Apparently birds consume them, so they’re a very temporary memorial.”

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

The plan on the event day is to plant pansies at fresh spots and also refresh the memorials in places he has previously memorialised, all the while discussing with those on the guided walk about the incidents and his personal experiences. “There’s been quite a few following earlier installations,” he says with regret.

Moving Forward with Hope

Harfleet hopes his work – and