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In 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his last significant endeavors. Famed for introducing auto-destructive art, Metzger had spent a lifetime to addressing societal issues from nuclear disarmament to vegetarianism. Through a short video message, he requested support for a worldwide initiative to celebrate the natural world.

“This is my appeal for your involvement in this worldwide call for a day of action to commemorate our planet on the fourth of November, 2015,” he stated, inviting artists and creatives to resist the continuing disappearance of flora and fauna. “Our responsibility is to remind people of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into realms that are inherently creative.”

The Birth of Remember Nature

In this way the environmental art day was born, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain created responses to the ongoing environmental crisis. Jo Joelson, who supported Metzger in his final years, remembers his sense of urgency. “He had a great sense of urgency for him at the close of his days,” she says. “I just said – don’t delay. We shouldn’t hold back for financial support or for anyone to authorize this. Take action immediately.”

After Ten Years

Ten years later, the project did not incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had envisioned, but Joelson believes its impact can still be seen in initiatives like artist-led declarations and climate activism networks, as well as in how creatives consider the environmental impact of their methods. For this purpose she is restaging it to mark its decade milestone. Part of the featured creators participating now are Yu-Chen Wang and other notable figures. They have all produced imagery, shared messages, and produced installations set to be revealed on the fourth of November next year.

Sowing Change

Interviewing one participant, she is on site in the countryside, assisting with planting apple trees that will grow to form a coiled garden. Working with schoolchildren, her project is part creative piece and half educational workshop. As she explains, the preparation and sowing sessions have already included learning about mathematics (measuring out the distances between trees), biology (exploring the genetic makeup), and origins (tracing the stories of how different apples came to the UK).

A lot 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

“Many of the apples were selected because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Bloody Butcher,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ crimson liquid. Every one carries histories attached. The ancient variety was imported by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that dropped off a tree and landed on the scientist’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more actively aware of the environment and the control we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was prompting them, next time they were out, to look on the bag and see the variety and the source. Hopefully it says Kent!”

Cultural Projects Nationwide

At the capital, one artist’s project on disappearance will include attendees searching a major gallery on a quest to find the ice masses that have been vanished in recent years. All formations will be depicted on the exhibition spaces using invisible ink. Each discovery, a alert will occur and a recitation will be conducted to commemorate that particular glacier.

At the same time, up in Barrow-in-Furness, an artist will be hosting a open display about our alienation from the environment, as well as organizing a community dinner, cooked from organic, local produce. Further north, Uta Kögelsberger is broadcasting her environmental performance, in which community vocalists begin a project to sing plants back to health in a green space.

Young Insights

Similar to other artists, a featured creator will be working with schoolchildren – on the scheduled date she is aiming to fill Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in youth creations that document their hopes and fears for the years ahead. “Youthful expressions are compelling because they’re not as inhibited as grown-ups’,” she says in her recorded message. “The contributions of youth to the world is something truly special and it may provoke a feeling of duty from everyone. Children are innocent. They have fears about the future. But it isn’t meant to be about worry – it should be about optimism and making sure that they have a tomorrow.”

Memorials and Memory

Paul Harfleet’s work also resonates for children. With a background in performance, his Birds Can Fly involves illustrating avians and then dressing up as them – and for the initiative he is intending to tackle an iconic figure. He is also organizing a walking tour of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his Pansy Project over the last two decades. This endeavor began when he endured multiple occurrences of homophobic abuse on a single day. In response, Harfleet decided to plant a pansy at the spot where it happened and record it – the project has since expanded to include incidents experienced by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they fade quickly,” says Harfleet. “Apparently pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a short-lived memorial.”

The artist selected the pansy not just for the clear connection – it has long been a slur – but also because its origin is the French verb, penser, to think. “It became associated with a man who is contemplative, 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 marked earlier, all the while conversing with those on the itinerant journey about the events and his recollections. “I’ve recorded quite a few following earlier installations,” he says sadly.

Progressing Optimistically

He desires his work – and