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Back in 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger launched one of his last major projects. Recognized for introducing art that erases itself, Metzger had devoted his career to responding to global challenges from nuclear disarmament to vegetarianism. Via a concise video message, he requested support for a worldwide initiative to honor the environment.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your participation in this worldwide call for a day of action to reflect on the environment on the fourth of November, 2015,” he announced, urging makers and thinkers to resist the ongoing loss of living beings. “Our responsibility is to make audiences aware of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so art will enter domains that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Inception of Nature Remembrance

In this way the environmental art day was established, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain produced pieces to the unfolding climate catastrophe. Jo Joelson, who cared for Metzger in his final years, recalls his drive for action. “I sensed a strong sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “I urged him – don’t delay. Let’s not wait for financial support or for anyone to approve this. Let’s just do it.”

Ten Years On

Ten years later, Remember Nature did not sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but Joelson believes its impact can still be seen in campaigns like cultural advocacy groups and climate activism networks, as well as in how creatives consider the environmental impact of their methods. This is the reason she is relaunching it to celebrate its decade milestone. Part of the key participants taking part currently are Yu-Chen Wang and other notable figures. They have all produced imagery, made video appeals, and produced installations set to be revealed on 4 November 2025.

Cultivating Awareness

In conversation with the artist, she is out in a field in Kent, helping plant apple trees that will grow to form a coiled garden. Engaging schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and part learning experience. According to her, the preparation and sowing sessions have already incorporated learning about mathematics (calculating the gaps in the orchard), science (studying the hereditary traits), and geography (mapping the journeys of how different apples came to the UK).

A lot of the apples were chosen because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Bloody Butcher. We have one apple that releases scarcolored sap

“Several the apples were picked because they’ve got funny names such as the Bloody Butcher,” says Gallaccio. “We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ crimson liquid. Each has background narratives. The decio apple was imported by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that dropped off a tree and landed on Isaac Newton’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more thoughtfully connected of the natural world and the control we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was urging them, on their next shopping trip, to check the packaging and see what they’re called and the source. Hopefully it says Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Throughout Britain

Within the city, Youngsook Choi’s work about extinction will engage visitors exploring a major gallery on a quest to find the frozen formations that have been disappeared in the past decade. Every ice sheet will be drawn on the museum surfaces using ultraviolet markers. Whenever one is found, a bell will ring and a performance will be performed to commemorate that specific ice mass.

Meanwhile, up in Barrow-in-Furness, Maddi Nicholson will be putting on a open display about our alienation from the environment, as well as hosting a shared meal, prepared with organic, local produce. Over in Newcastle, a participant is streaming her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which community vocalists embark on a mission to use music to heal flora in a local park.

Children’s Voices

Like Gallaccio, another participant will be collaborating with schoolchildren – on the scheduled date she is planning to decorate a cultural venue in kids’ letters and drawings that document their dreams and worries for the future. “Kids’ art are impactful because they’re not as inhibited as grown-ups’,” she says in her call to action video. “What children have to offer to the world is something quite unique and it may inspire a awareness of obligation from us all. Youth is pure. They have anxieties about what’s next. But it isn’t meant to be about anxiety – it should be about hope and us ensuring that they see a better world.”

Memorials and Memory

A participant’s work also connects with children. As a former drag queen, his Birds Can Fly involves sketching winged creatures and then embodying them – and for the initiative he is aiming to represent an iconic figure. He is also conducting a guided walk of the city, stopping at places that have been part of his long-term work over the past twenty years. This endeavor started after he experienced three incidents of discrimination on a one occasion. In response, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the site of each occurrence and record it – the project has since grown to include incidents experienced by other people across the world. “The flowers remain there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “Apparently birds consume them, so they’re a short-lived memorial.”

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

The plan on Remember Nature day is to sow flowers at additional sites and also replant flowers in places he has marked earlier, all the while discussing with those on the itinerant journey about the incidents and his memories of them. “There’s been quite a few since I last planted,” he says mournfully.

Progressing Optimistically

Harfleet hopes his work – and