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In 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger launched one of his final significant endeavors. Recognized for creating auto-destructive art, Metzger had dedicated his life to responding to global challenges from anti-nuclear advocacy to vegetarianism. Through a short video message, he made a plea for a global day of action to honor the environment.

“This is my appeal for your engagement in this global appeal for a day of action to remember nature on the fourth of November, 2015,” he declared, urging cultural workers to stand against the ongoing loss of living beings. “Our task is to remind people of the diversity and intricacy in nature … and by doing so art will enter domains that are naturally imaginative.”

The Creation of Remember Nature

In this way the environmental art day was born, a day when creatives nationwide produced pieces to the ongoing environmental crisis. One of the curators, who worked closely with Metzger in his last days, recalls his drive for action. “He had a strong sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “I urged him – let’s not mess around. No need to pause for financial support or for anyone to authorize this. We should proceed.”

Ten Years On

Ten years later, the initiative hasn’t quite sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had dreamed of, but Joelson believes its influence can still be felt in movements like cultural advocacy groups and climate activism networks, as well as in how creatives consider the eco-friendliness of their methods. That’s why she is reviving it to mark its ten-year mark. Part of the key participants taking part currently are Yu-Chen Wang and Anya Gallaccio. They have all designed posters, recorded calls to action, and produced installations set to be presented on the fourth of November next year.

Planting Hope

In conversation with one participant, she is working outdoors in a rural area, cultivating apple trees that will develop into a spiral-shaped orchard. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is half artwork and somewhat instructive. She describes, the planning and planting sessions have already incorporated learning about mathematics (calculating the gaps in the orchard), biology (studying the apple’s DNA), and geography (researching the stories of how distinct varieties came to the UK).

A lot of the apples were picked because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Duck’s Bill. We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ red juice

“A lot of the apples were chosen because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Bloody Butcher,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that produces scarlet-colored sap. They all have background narratives. The decio apple was imported by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that descended from a tree and landed on the physicist’s head.”

Gallaccio wanted the children to be more thoughtfully connected 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 prompting them, when they go shopping, to read the label and see the variety and where they were grown. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Throughout Britain

At the capital, a participant’s project on disappearance will include attendees looking through an art institution on a journey to find the frozen formations that have been vanished in modern times. All formations will be depicted on the museum surfaces using ultraviolet markers. Each discovery, a bell will ring and a recitation will be performed to commemorate that particular glacier.

Elsewhere, up in Barrow-in-Furness, a creative will be putting on a free exhibition about our disconnection from the land, as well as organizing a communal feast, made using sustainable ingredients. In another city, an artist is broadcasting her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which local singers embark on a mission to perform for vegetation in a local park.

Youth Perspectives

Similar to other artists, another participant will be collaborating with schoolchildren – on the scheduled date she is hoping to cover Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in youth creations that document their aspirations and concerns for the years ahead. “Youthful expressions are powerful because they’re not as inhibited as adults’,” she says in her call to action video. “The contributions of youth to the world is something quite unique and it may provoke a awareness of obligation from each person. Children are innocent. They have anxieties about what’s next. But this shouldn’t be about anxiety – it should be about hope and our responsibility that they have a tomorrow.”

Tributes and Thoughts

Another artist’s work also resonates for children. Drawing on past experience, his Birds Can Fly involves sketching winged creatures and then dressing up as them – and for the initiative he is aiming to address Liverpool’s famous Liver bird. He is also conducting a walking tour of the city, stopping at places that have been part of his long-term work over the recent decades. That ongoing series started after he faced three incidents of homophobic abuse on a one occasion. To counter this, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the site of each occurrence and photograph it – the project has since expanded to cover events reported by other people across the world. “I place the plants there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “It seems wildlife enjoys them, so they’re a short-lived memorial.”

The artist selected the bloom not just for the direct association – 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 contemplative, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The intention on Remember Nature day is to place blooms at fresh spots and also renew the tributes in places he has honored before, all the while conversing with those on the itinerant journey about the events 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