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During 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his final significant endeavors. Known for pioneering auto-destructive art, Metzger had spent a lifetime to addressing societal issues from nuclear disarmament to ethical eating. Through a short video message, he made a plea for a worldwide initiative to celebrate the natural world.

“I call upon you for your engagement in this worldwide call for a day of action to commemorate our planet on 4 November 2015,” he declared, encouraging cultural workers to resist the steady eradication of living beings. “Our task is to remind people of the diversity and intricacy in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into realms that are inherently creative.”

The Inception of Environmental Reflection

And so the environmental art day was born, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain produced pieces to the escalating planetary emergency. An organizer, who supported Metzger in his final years, recalls his drive for action. “He had a profound sense of urgency for him at the close of his days,” she says. “I urged him – let’s not mess around. Let’s not wait for funding or for anyone to green light this. Let’s just do it.”

After Ten Years

Ten years later, Remember Nature hasn’t quite incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but organizers feel its legacy can still be felt in initiatives like cultural advocacy groups and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how creatives consider the sustainability of their work. That’s why she is reviving it to celebrate its decade milestone. Included in the featured creators involved this time are Yu-Chen Wang and other notable figures. They have all designed posters, recorded calls to action, and created artworks set to be unveiled on the fourth of November next year.

Cultivating Awareness

Interviewing Anya Gallaccio, she is on site in Kent, helping plant apple trees that will grow to form a spiral-shaped orchard. Working with schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and somewhat instructive. According to her, the planning and planting sessions have already involved learning about maths (measuring out the distances between trees), science (studying the hereditary traits), and history (mapping the stories of how various cultivars were introduced to England).

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 picked because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Duck’s Bill,” she explains. “We have one apple that produces red juice. They all have histories attached. The decio apple 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 thoughtfully connected of the natural world and the control we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you buy from a supermarket, so I was urging them, next time they were out, to look on the bag and see what they’re called and where they were grown. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Artistic Responses Across the Country

In London, Youngsook Choi’s Book of Loss will include attendees searching an art institution on a quest to find the frozen formations that have been lost in recent years. Every ice sheet will be illustrated on the gallery’s windows and walls using ultraviolet markers. Whenever one is found, a chime will sound and a recitation will be performed to commemorate that particular glacier.

Elsewhere, up in Barrow-in-Furness, an artist will be hosting a public show about our alienation from the environment, as well as hosting a shared meal, cooked from regional food. In another city, a participant is broadcasting her environmental performance, in which local singers embark on a mission to sing plants back to health in a local park.

Young Insights

Similar to other artists, a featured creator will be working with schoolchildren – on the day itself she is planning to fill a cultural venue in youth creations that document their dreams and worries for the tomorrow. “Kids’ art are compelling because they’re not as trammelled as adults’,” she says in her call to action video. “The contributions of youth to the world is something quite unique and hopefully it will stimulate a feeling of duty from each person. Children are innocent. They have fears about the future. But it isn’t meant to be about worry – it should be about optimism and our responsibility that they have a tomorrow.”

Tributes and Thoughts

Paul Harfleet’s work also appeals to children. Drawing on past experience, his feathered initiative involves sketching winged creatures and then dressing up as them – and for Remember Nature day he is planning to tackle Liverpool’s famous Liver bird. He is also staging a walking tour of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his long-term work over the past twenty years. The project commenced following he faced multiple occurrences of homophobic abuse on a single day. In response, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the spot where it happened and record it – the project has since grown to incorporate experiences reported by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “Apparently pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a short-lived memorial.”

He picked the pansy not just for the direct association – it has long been a term of homophobic abuse – but also because its etymology comes from the French verb, penser, to think. “People connected it with a man who is contemplative, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The intention on 4 November is to sow flowers at fresh spots and also renew the tributes in places he has previously memorialised, all the while discussing with those on the guided walk about the events and his recollections. “I’ve recorded quite a few since I last planted,” he says mournfully.

Moving Forward with Hope

He desires his work – and