🔗 Share this article

During 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger launched one of his final important works. Known for creating self-destructive creations, Metzger had devoted his career to addressing global challenges from peace activism to ethical eating. Through a short video message, he requested support for a international event to honor the environment.

“This is my appeal for your involvement in this global appeal for a day of action to commemorate our planet on November 4th, 2015,” he announced, urging artists and creatives to oppose the ongoing loss of flora and fauna. “Our task is to remind people of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore realms that are naturally imaginative.”

The Inception of Environmental Reflection

And so the Nature Remembrance initiative was established, a day when creatives nationwide created responses to the escalating planetary emergency. One of the curators, who worked closely with Metzger in his final years, notes his sense of urgency. “He had a strong sense of urgency for him at the close of his days,” she says. “My advice was – we must act now. No need to pause for funding or for anyone to authorize this. Take action immediately.”

Ten Years On

After ten years, the initiative may not have triggered the broad uprising across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but organizers feel its influence can still be seen in movements like Culture Declares and climate activism networks, as well as in how creatives consider the sustainability of their work. For this purpose she is restaging it to mark its ten-year mark. Included in the featured creators taking part currently are Yu-Chen Wang and Anya Gallaccio. Each has created visual art, recorded calls to action, and created artworks set to be presented on 4 November 2025.

Planting Hope

Interviewing the artist, she is working outdoors in the countryside, helping plant apple trees that will create a circular grove. Working with schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and half educational workshop. According to her, the preparation and sowing sessions have already involved learning about measurements (measuring out the distances between trees), science (studying the hereditary traits), and geography (tracing the journeys of how various cultivars arrived in Britain).

Several the apples were chosen because they’ve got funny names such as the Duck’s Bill. We have one apple that releases crimson liquid

“Several the apples were picked because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Duck’s Bill,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ crimson liquid. Each has histories attached. The historical cultivar was brought over by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that dropped off a tree and hit the scientist’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more actively aware of the natural world and the influence we have over it. “To many of them, apples were just things you get at a supermarket, so I was encouraging them, next time they were out, to look on the bag and see what they’re called and the source. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Across the Country

Within the city, a participant’s Book of Loss will involve participants looking through a major gallery on a mission to find the ice masses that have been lost in the past decade. Every ice sheet will be depicted on the exhibition spaces using special pens. Whenever one is found, a alert will occur and a performance will be conducted to commemorate that particular glacier.

At the same time, up in Barrow-in-Furness, Maddi Nicholson will be presenting a free exhibition about our disconnection from the land, as well as hosting a community dinner, prepared with regional food. In another city, a participant is sharing her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which regional performers embark on a mission to perform for vegetation in a local park.

Children’s Voices

Similar to other artists, a featured creator will be working with schoolchildren – on the actual event she is hoping to decorate an art space in children’s artwork that document their hopes and fears for the future. “Kids’ art are powerful because they’re not as inhibited as mature perspectives,” she says in her recorded message. “The contributions of youth to the world is something truly special and perhaps it can provoke a sense of responsibility from us all. Kids are unbiased. They have fears about the future. But let’s not make it about anxiety – it should be about optimism and making sure that they get a future.”

Tributes and Thoughts

A participant’s work also resonates for children. With a background in performance, his feathered initiative involves sketching winged creatures and then embodying them – and for Remember Nature day he is intending to address a local symbol. He is also conducting a itinerant journey of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his Pansy Project over the past twenty years. This endeavor began when he faced three incidents of prejudice on a particular day. In response, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the site of each occurrence and document it – the project has since grown to incorporate experiences reported by other people across the world. “I place the plants there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “It seems wildlife enjoys them, so they’re a very temporary memorial.”

Harfleet chose the bloom not just for the obvious reason – it has long been a derogatory label – but also because its origin is the French verb, penser, to think. “It was linked to a man who is contemplative, and that, of course, is a negative trait,” he says.

The intention on 4 November is to place blooms at new locations and also refresh the memorials in places he has marked earlier, all the while conversing with those on the guided walk about the occurrences and his recollections. “We’ve seen quite a few after my previous work,” he says with regret.

Advancing Positively

The artist wishes his work – and