🔗 Share this article

Back in 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger launched one of his final major projects. Famed for pioneering auto-destructive art, Metzger had spent a lifetime to addressing societal issues from nuclear disarmament to ethical eating. Via a concise video message, he requested support for a worldwide initiative to remember nature.

“I call upon you for your involvement in this worldwide call for a day of action to reflect on the environment on November 4th, 2015,” he stated, encouraging artists and creatives to stand against the ongoing loss of species. “The mission is to help the public recall of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore territories that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Creation of Nature Remembrance

And so Remember Nature was born, a day when creatives nationwide developed works to the escalating planetary emergency. An organizer, who cared for Metzger in his last days, recalls his sense of urgency. “He had a profound sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “I urged him – we must act now. We shouldn’t hold back for financial support or for anyone to green light this. Take action immediately.”

A Decade Later

Ten years later, Remember Nature hasn’t quite incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had envisioned, but Joelson believes its influence can still be observed in initiatives like artist-led declarations and environmental protests, as well as in how makers handle the environmental impact of their work. For this purpose she is reviving it to commemorate its decade milestone. Among the 18 lead artists taking part currently are Cornelia Parker and other notable figures. Each has created visual art, made video appeals, and created artworks set to be unveiled on 4 November 2025.

Cultivating Awareness

When speaking to the artist, she is working outdoors in the countryside, assisting with planting apple trees that will develop into a coiled garden. Working with schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and half educational workshop. According to her, the planning and planting sessions have already incorporated learning about maths (spacing the gaps in the orchard), genetics (studying the hereditary traits), and origins (researching the backgrounds of how distinct varieties arrived in Britain).

Many of the apples were selected because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Duck’s Bill. We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ scarcolored sap

“Several the apples were picked because they’ve got funny names such as the other unusual varieties,” says Gallaccio. “We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ crimson liquid. They all have background narratives. The ancient variety was imported by the Romans. The local breed is the apple that dropped off a tree and struck the physicist’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more consciously engaged of nature and the control we have over it. “To many of them, apples were just things you buy from a supermarket, so I was urging them, on their next shopping trip, to check the packaging and see the variety and where they were grown. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Artistic Responses Nationwide

In London, Youngsook Choi’s project on disappearance will engage visitors searching a major gallery on a quest to find the ice masses that have been disappeared in the past decade. All formations will be depicted on the gallery’s windows and walls using special pens. Whenever one is found, a alert will occur and a performance will be performed to honor that specific ice mass.

Elsewhere, up in another location, Maddi Nicholson will be presenting a public show about our separation from nature, as well as organizing a communal feast, cooked from organic, local produce. Over in Newcastle, a participant is streaming her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which community vocalists undertake a task to use music to heal flora in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Young Insights

Like Gallaccio, Cornelia Parker will be engaging schoolchildren – on the scheduled date she is aiming to decorate a cultural venue in youth creations that express their hopes and fears for the years ahead. “Children’s words and images are impactful because they’re not as restricted as grown-ups’,” she says in her call to action video. “What children have to offer to the world is something truly special and it may inspire a awareness of obligation from us all. Youth is pure. They have anxieties about what’s next. But this shouldn’t be about fear – it should be about hope and us ensuring 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 drawing birds and then embodying them – and for the event he is aiming to represent an iconic figure. He is also staging a guided walk of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his ongoing series over the past twenty years. That ongoing series started after he faced several events of discrimination on a one occasion. To counter this, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the spot where it happened and photograph it – the project has since spiralled to include incidents experienced by other people across the world. “I place the plants there but they fade quickly,” says Harfleet. “Apparently wildlife enjoys them, so they’re a very temporary memorial.”

Harfleet chose the bloom not just for the clear connection – it has long been a derogatory label – but also because its etymology comes from the French verb, penser, to think. “It was linked to a man who is contemplative, and that, of course, is a terrible thing,” he says.

The plan on 4 November is to plant pansies at additional sites and also replant flowers in places he has previously memorialised, all the while talking to those on the itinerant journey about the occurrences and his personal experiences. “We’ve seen quite a few following earlier installations,” he says sadly.

Moving Forward with Hope

He desires his work – and