🔗 Share this article

In 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger initiated one of his last important works. Recognized for pioneering self-destructive creations, Metzger had devoted his career to confronting societal issues from nuclear disarmament to plant-based living. Via a concise video message, he issued a call 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 commemorate our planet on November 4th, 2015,” he declared, inviting makers and thinkers to stand against the continuing disappearance of species. “The mission is to remind people of the diversity and intricacy in nature … and by doing so art will enter realms that are naturally imaginative.”

The Inception of Nature Remembrance

Thus the Nature Remembrance initiative was born, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain developed works to the escalating planetary emergency. An organizer, who supported Metzger in his last days, remembers his feeling of immediacy. “I sensed a profound sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “I urged him – don’t delay. We shouldn’t hold back for sponsorship or for anyone to authorize this. Take action immediately.”

A Decade Later

A decade on, the project may not have triggered the broad uprising across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but supporters think its influence can still be seen in initiatives like Culture Declares and climate activism networks, as well as in how creatives consider the environmental impact of their methods. That’s why she is relaunching it to celebrate its 10-year anniversary. Among the key participants participating now are A Man Called Adam and other notable figures. Each has designed posters, recorded calls to action, and produced installations set to be presented on 4 November 2025.

Planting Hope

In conversation with Anya Gallaccio, she is out in a field in a rural area, assisting with planting apple trees that will grow to form a coiled garden. Engaging schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and part learning experience. She describes, the preparation and sowing sessions have already involved learning about mathematics (measuring out the distances between trees), science (discussing the hereditary traits), and history (researching the stories of how distinct varieties arrived in Britain).

Many of the apples were selected because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Duck’s Bill. We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ crimson liquid

“A lot of the apples were chosen because they’ve got amusing labels such as the other unusual varieties,” she explains. “We have one apple that releases scarlet-colored sap. Every one carries histories attached. The historical cultivar was brought over by the Romans. The local breed is the apple that fell from a tree and struck the scientist’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more actively aware of the environment and the power we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was prompting them, on their next shopping trip, to check the packaging and see their names and their origin. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Throughout Britain

At the capital, a participant’s Book of Loss will engage visitors searching a major gallery on a mission to find the seven major glaciers that have been vanished in modern times. All formations will be depicted on the exhibition spaces using invisible ink. Each discovery, a bell will ring and a recitation will be conducted to commemorate that individual formation.

Elsewhere, up in Barrow-in-Furness, an artist will be putting on a free exhibition about our disconnection from the land, as well as hosting a communal feast, made using organic, local produce. Further north, a participant is broadcasting her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which regional performers begin a project to perform for vegetation in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Youth Perspectives

Similar to other artists, Cornelia Parker will be collaborating with schoolchildren – on the day itself she is planning to cover a cultural venue in youth creations that express their dreams and worries for the tomorrow. “Children’s words and images are impactful because they’re not as restricted as grown-ups’,” she says in her recorded message. “Young people’s input to the world is something distinctive and hopefully it will provoke a feeling of duty from each person. Kids are unbiased. They have anxieties about what’s next. But let’s not make it about anxiety – it should be about positivity and our responsibility that they have a tomorrow.”

Tributes and Thoughts

A participant’s work also connects with children. With a background in performance, his Birds Can Fly involves drawing birds and then embodying them – and for the initiative he is planning to address 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. This endeavor began when he faced several events of homophobic abuse on a single day. As a reaction, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the spot where it happened and record it – the project has since grown to cover events shared by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “Apparently wildlife enjoys them, so they’re a short-lived memorial.”

Harfleet chose 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. “People connected it with a man who is reflective, and that, of course, is a terrible thing,” he says.

The intention on Remember Nature day is to place blooms at new locations and also refresh the memorials in places he has marked earlier, all the while conversing with those on the itinerant journey about the events and his recollections. “There’s been quite a few after my previous work,” he says mournfully.

Progressing Optimistically

Harfleet hopes his work – and