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Back in 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger initiated one of his ultimate major projects. Famed for creating auto-destructive art, Metzger had spent a lifetime to addressing human struggles from nuclear disarmament to vegetarianism. Through a short video message, he made a plea for a worldwide initiative to honor the environment.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your involvement in this worldwide call for a day of action to remember nature on the fourth of November, 2015,” he stated, urging artists and creatives to oppose the continuing disappearance of flora and fauna. “Our task is to make audiences aware of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into territories that are inherently creative.”

The Creation of Nature Remembrance

In this way Remember Nature was established, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain produced pieces to the ongoing environmental crisis. An organizer, who cared for Metzger in his later life, recalls his drive for action. “There was a great sense of urgency for him at the close of his days,” she says. “My advice was – we must act now. Let’s not wait for sponsorship or for anyone to authorize this. Take action immediately.”

After Ten Years

After ten years, Remember Nature did not sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had dreamed of, but Joelson believes its impact can still be observed in campaigns like cultural advocacy groups and environmental protests, as well as in how creatives consider the sustainability of their methods. For this purpose she is restaging it to celebrate its 10-year anniversary. Part of the featured creators participating now are A Man Called Adam and Anya Gallaccio. They have all created visual art, shared messages, and produced installations set to be unveiled on the fourth of November next year.

Planting Hope

In conversation with Anya Gallaccio, she is on site in the countryside, assisting with planting apple trees that will develop into a spiral-shaped orchard. Working with schoolchildren, her project is half artwork and somewhat instructive. As she explains, the planning and planting sessions have already included learning about maths (calculating the distances between trees), genetics (studying the apple’s DNA), and history (mapping the stories of how different apples were introduced to England).

Several the apples were selected because they’ve got funny names such as the Bloody Butcher. We have one apple that produces red juice

“Several the apples were chosen because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Duck’s Bill,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that releases red juice. They all have stories behind them. The ancient variety was imported by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that dropped off a tree and landed on the scientist’s head.”

Gallaccio wanted the children to be more thoughtfully connected of nature and the power we have over it. “To many of them, apples were just things you get at a supermarket, so I was prompting them, on their next shopping trip, to read the label and see the variety and their origin. Hopefully it says Kent!”

Cultural Projects Across the Country

In London, one artist’s work about extinction will include attendees exploring Tate Modern on a quest to find the seven major glaciers that have been disappeared in recent years. All formations will be depicted on the exhibition spaces using invisible ink. Each discovery, a alert will occur and a reading will be conducted to remember that particular glacier.

Meanwhile, up in Barrow-in-Furness, a creative will be putting on a open display about our disconnection from the land, as well as hosting a communal feast, cooked from sustainable ingredients. In another city, a participant is broadcasting her musical project, in which regional performers embark on a mission to perform for vegetation in a local park.

Young Insights

Like Gallaccio, Cornelia Parker will be engaging schoolchildren – on the day itself she is hoping to decorate an art space in children’s artwork that document their dreams and worries for the tomorrow. “Kids’ art are powerful because they’re not as inhibited as adults’,” she says in her public appeal. “The contributions of youth to the world is something truly special and perhaps it can inspire a awareness of obligation from each person. Children are innocent. They have anxieties about what’s next. But it isn’t meant to be about fear – it should be about positivity and our responsibility that they see a better world.”

Memorials and Memory

Another artist’s work also connects with children. With a background in performance, his Birds Can Fly involves sketching winged creatures and then dressing up as them – and for Remember Nature day he is intending to represent an iconic figure. He is also conducting a itinerant journey 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 single day. In response, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the location of every incident and record it – the project has since spiralled to cover events reported by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “Apparently birds consume them, so they’re a very temporary memorial.”

The artist selected the pansy not just for the obvious reason – it has long been a slur – but also because its origin is the French verb, penser, to think. “People connected it with a man who is reflective, and that, of course, is a negative trait,” he says.

The intention on the event day is to plant pansies at additional sites and also refresh the memorials in places he has previously memorialised, all the while conversing with those on the guided walk about the events and his memories of them. “We’ve seen quite a few following earlier installations,” he says sadly.

Progressing Optimistically

He desires his work – and