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During 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger initiated one of his final major projects. Famed for introducing art that erases itself, 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 remember nature.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your participation in this worldwide call for a day of action to remember nature on the fourth of November, 2015,” he declared, urging makers and thinkers to stand against the ongoing loss of flora and fauna. “The mission is to help the public recall of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into domains that are naturally imaginative.”

The Inception of Nature Remembrance

In this way the environmental art day came into being, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain produced pieces to the ongoing environmental crisis. One of the curators, who supported Metzger in his final years, recalls his sense of urgency. “He had a profound sense of urgency for him at the close of his days,” she says. “My advice was – don’t delay. We shouldn’t hold back for sponsorship or for anyone to authorize this. We should proceed.”

Ten Years On

After ten years, Remember Nature hasn’t quite incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had envisioned, but supporters think its legacy can still be felt in movements like cultural advocacy groups and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how artists approach the environmental impact of their methods. For this purpose she is reviving it to celebrate its ten-year mark. Among the featured creators involved this time are Yu-Chen Wang and prominent artists. They have all produced imagery, shared messages, and created artworks set to be unveiled on November 4, 2025.

Cultivating Awareness

When speaking to Anya Gallaccio, she is on site in the countryside, helping plant apple trees that will grow to form a circular grove. Working with schoolchildren, her project is part creative piece and somewhat instructive. According to her, the planning and planting sessions have already involved learning about measurements (measuring out the planting intervals), genetics (exploring the hereditary traits), and origins (tracing the journeys of how various cultivars came to the UK).

A lot of the apples were picked because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Bloody Butcher. We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ scarcolored sap

“A lot of the apples were chosen because they’ve got funny names such as the other unusual varieties,” says Gallaccio. “We have one apple that releases red juice. Every one carries histories attached. The historical cultivar was brought over by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that descended from a tree and struck the physicist’s head.”

The artist aimed the children to be more thoughtfully connected of the environment and the control we have over it. “For a lot of them, apples were just things you get at a supermarket, so I was urging them, next time they were out, to look on the bag and see their names and where they were grown. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Throughout Britain

Within the city, one artist’s Book of Loss will include attendees looking through a major gallery on a journey to find the ice masses that have been disappeared in the past decade. Each glacier will be drawn on the museum surfaces using ultraviolet markers. When located, a chime will sound and a recitation will be held to remember that individual formation.

At the same time, up in another location, Maddi Nicholson will be putting on a free exhibition about our separation from nature, as well as organizing a shared meal, prepared with organic, local produce. Further north, a participant is sharing her environmental performance, in which community vocalists begin a project to use music to heal flora in a local park.

Children’s Voices

Following this approach, another participant will be working with schoolchildren – on the actual event she is aiming to fill an art space in children’s artwork that express their dreams and worries for the future. “Children’s words and images 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 quite unique and it may inspire a feeling of duty from each person. Kids are unbiased. They have concerns for tomorrow. But it isn’t meant to be about worry – it should be about optimism and our responsibility that they get a future.”

Memorials and Memory

Another artist’s work also resonates for children. Drawing on past experience, his Birds Can Fly involves drawing birds and then dressing up as them – and for the event he is planning to represent a local symbol. He is also staging a guided walk of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his ongoing series over the past twenty years. This endeavor started after he faced several events of prejudice on a one occasion. To counter this, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the location of every incident and record it – the project has since spiralled to cover events shared by other people across the world. “The flowers remain there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “It seems birds consume them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

Harfleet chose 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 became associated with a man who is thoughtful, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The project on the event day is to sow flowers at additional sites and also replant flowers in places he has honored before, all the while discussing with those on the itinerant journey about the events and his personal experiences. “There’s been quite a few after my previous work,” he says mournfully.

Progressing Optimistically

Harfleet hopes his work – and