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During 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger initiated one of his final important works. Known for pioneering self-destructive creations, Metzger had spent a lifetime to confronting societal issues from anti-nuclear advocacy to plant-based living. Through a short video message, he requested support for a worldwide initiative to honor the environment.

“This is my appeal for your engagement in this worldwide call for a day of action to remember nature on 4 November 2015,” he declared, inviting makers and thinkers to oppose the steady eradication of flora and fauna. “Our task is to help the public recall of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore territories that are naturally imaginative.”

The Creation of Environmental Reflection

In this way the Nature Remembrance initiative was established, a day when artists across the country produced pieces to the ongoing environmental crisis. An organizer, who cared for Metzger in his last days, recalls his sense of urgency. “I sensed a great sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “I just said – don’t delay. We shouldn’t hold back for funding or for anyone to green light this. We should proceed.”

After Ten Years

A decade on, the project may not have incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had dreamed of, but organizers feel its impact can still be felt in initiatives like Culture Declares and environmental protests, as well as in how creatives consider the environmental impact of their work. This is the reason she is relaunching it to commemorate its ten-year mark. Among the featured creators taking part currently are Cornelia Parker and other notable figures. Each has created visual art, recorded calls to action, and produced installations set to be revealed on the fourth of November next year.

Sowing Change

Interviewing Anya Gallaccio, she is working outdoors in a rural area, assisting with planting apple trees that will grow to form a circular grove. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is part creative piece and part learning experience. As she explains, the preparation and sowing sessions have already incorporated learning about measurements (spacing the planting intervals), biology (exploring the genetic makeup), and geography (researching the stories of how various cultivars came to the UK).

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

“Several the apples were picked because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Bloody Butcher,” she explains. “We have one apple that produces scarlet-colored sap. Each has stories behind them. The historical cultivar was imported by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that descended from a tree and landed on the physicist’s head.”

The artist aimed the children to be more actively aware of nature and the influence we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was urging them, when they go shopping, to read the label and see their names and their origin. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Artistic Responses Across the Country

In London, Youngsook Choi’s project on disappearance will include attendees searching a major gallery on a quest to find the frozen formations that have been lost in recent years. Every ice sheet will be illustrated on the exhibition spaces using ultraviolet markers. When located, a bell will ring and a performance will be conducted to remember that individual formation.

Elsewhere, up in a northern town, Maddi Nicholson will be putting on a open display about our separation from nature, as well as hosting a community dinner, prepared with organic, local produce. In another city, Uta Kögelsberger is broadcasting her musical project, in which community vocalists undertake a task to sing plants back to health in a green space.

Young Insights

Similar to other artists, a featured creator will be working with schoolchildren – on the day itself she is planning to decorate Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in children’s artwork that document their aspirations and concerns for the tomorrow. “Children’s words and images are powerful because they’re not as restricted as adults’,” she says in her recorded message. “What children have to offer to the world is something quite unique and perhaps it can stimulate a awareness of obligation from us all. Youth is pure. They have fears about the future. But this shouldn’t be about worry – it should be about hope and our responsibility that they get a future.”

Remembrance and Reflection

Another artist’s work also appeals to children. With a background in performance, his feathered initiative involves illustrating avians and then performing as birds – and for Remember Nature day he is planning to tackle an iconic figure. He is also staging a guided walk of the city, stopping at places that have been part of his long-term work over the recent decades. That ongoing series began when he faced several events of discrimination on a one occasion. In response, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the site of each occurrence and record it – the project has since grown to cover events shared by other people across the world. “I place the plants there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “It seems pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

He picked the pansy not just for the clear connection – it has long been a term of homophobic abuse – but also because its etymology comes from the French verb, penser, to think. “It became associated with a man who is thoughtful, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The plan on Remember Nature day is to plant pansies at fresh spots and also renew the tributes in places he has honored before, all the while conversing with those on the guided walk about the events and his personal experiences. “There’s been quite a few after my previous work,” he says with regret.

Moving Forward with Hope

The artist wishes his work – and