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In 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger launched one of his ultimate major projects. Famed for pioneering self-destructive creations, Metzger had devoted his career to addressing human struggles from anti-nuclear advocacy to ethical eating. Via a concise video message, he requested support for a worldwide initiative to celebrate the natural world.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your involvement in this international summons for a day of action to remember nature on November 4th, 2015,” he declared, urging cultural workers to resist the continuing disappearance of flora and fauna. “Our responsibility is to make audiences aware of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into territories that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Inception of Environmental Reflection

Thus Remember Nature came into being, a day when creatives nationwide produced pieces to the escalating planetary emergency. One of the curators, who supported Metzger in his last days, remembers his drive for action. “He had a strong sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “I just said – we must act now. No need to pause for funding or for anyone to approve this. We should proceed.”

A Decade Later

Ten years later, the project did not sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had dreamed of, but organizers feel its legacy can still be felt in movements like cultural advocacy groups and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how creatives consider the eco-friendliness of their practices. For this purpose she is restaging it to mark its ten-year mark. Among the key participants participating now are Cornelia Parker and other notable figures. Each has designed posters, made video appeals, and developed pieces set to be presented on the fourth of November next year.

Sowing Change

Interviewing Anya Gallaccio, she is working outdoors in Kent, assisting with planting apple trees that will develop into a spiral-shaped orchard. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is half artwork and part learning experience. As she explains, the planning and planting sessions have already included learning about maths (calculating the planting intervals), biology (exploring the genetic makeup), and geography (mapping the backgrounds of how various cultivars came to the UK).

Several the apples were picked because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Bloody Butcher. We have one apple that produces red juice

“Many of the apples were chosen because they’ve got humorous titles such as the other unusual varieties,” says Gallaccio. “We have one apple that produces scarlet-colored sap. Every one carries histories attached. The decio apple was imported by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that fell from a tree and hit the scientist’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more consciously engaged of the natural world 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 check the packaging and see the variety and their origin. Hopefully it says Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Throughout Britain

Within the city, Youngsook Choi’s project on disappearance will involve participants exploring an art institution on a mission to find the ice masses that have been lost in the past decade. Each glacier will be drawn on the museum surfaces using ultraviolet markers. When located, a alert will occur and a recitation will be conducted to remember that individual formation.

Elsewhere, up in a northern town, Maddi Nicholson will be putting on a public show about our disconnection from the land, as well as hosting a communal feast, made using regional food. Over in Newcastle, a participant is broadcasting her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which regional performers undertake a task to use music to heal flora in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Children’s Voices

Following this approach, another participant will be collaborating with schoolchildren – on the day itself she is hoping to fill Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in kids’ letters and drawings that capture their aspirations and concerns for the tomorrow. “Youthful expressions are compelling because they’re not as trammelled as mature perspectives,” she says in her call to action video. “The contributions of youth to the world is something truly special and hopefully it will stimulate a sense of responsibility from each person. Children are innocent. They have fears about the future. But let’s not make it about worry – it should be about optimism and us ensuring that they have a tomorrow.”

Memorials and Memory

Paul Harfleet’s work also connects with children. With a background in performance, his avian project involves illustrating avians and then embodying them – and for the initiative he is intending to address Liverpool’s famous Liver bird. He is also organizing a itinerant journey of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his Pansy Project over the past twenty years. The project began when he endured multiple occurrences of prejudice on a one occasion. In response, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the site of each occurrence and photograph it – the project has since grown to include incidents reported by other people across the world. “I place the plants there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “It seems birds consume them, so they’re a very temporary memorial.”

The artist selected 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 became associated 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 new locations and also refresh the memorials in places he has honored before, all the while talking to those on the itinerant journey about the occurrences and his memories of them. “There’s been quite a few since I last planted,” he says with regret.

Progressing Optimistically

Harfleet hopes his work – and