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In 2015, artist and activist Gustav Metzger launched one of his ultimate major projects. Famed for pioneering self-destructive creations, Metzger had spent a lifetime to responding to global challenges from peace activism to ethical eating. In a brief 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 remember nature on 4 November 2015,” he announced, urging makers and thinkers to resist the ongoing loss of living beings. “Our task is to make audiences aware of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into realms that are naturally imaginative.”

The Creation of Environmental Reflection

In this way the Nature Remembrance initiative came into being, a day when artists across the country created responses to the ongoing environmental crisis. One of the curators, who cared for Metzger in his later life, notes his drive for action. “There was a great sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “I urged him – let’s not mess around. Let’s not wait for sponsorship or for anyone to approve this. Take action immediately.”

Ten Years On

A decade on, Remember Nature may not have incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but organizers feel its influence can still be observed in movements like Culture Declares and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how creatives consider the sustainability of their practices. This is the reason she is reviving it to celebrate its decade milestone. Part of the featured creators involved this time are Yu-Chen Wang and Anya Gallaccio. Each has designed posters, shared messages, and created artworks set to be unveiled on the fourth of November next year.

Sowing Change

Interviewing the artist, she is working outdoors in a rural area, helping plant apple trees that will develop into a circular grove. Engaging schoolchildren, her project is half artwork and part learning experience. She describes, the preparation and sowing sessions have already incorporated learning about maths (spacing the gaps in the orchard), science (studying the hereditary traits), and origins (researching the journeys of how different apples arrived in Britain).

Many of the apples were chosen because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Bloody Butcher. We have one apple that produces crimson liquid

“Many of the apples were picked because they’ve got funny names such as the Bloody Butcher,” she explains. “We have one apple that releases crimson liquid. They all have background narratives. The decio apple was brought over by the Romans. The local breed is the apple that dropped off a tree and landed on Isaac Newton’s head.”

The artist aimed the children to be more consciously engaged of the environment and the influence we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was encouraging them, when they go shopping, to read the label and see their names and the source. Hopefully it says Kent!”

Artistic Responses Throughout Britain

Within the city, one artist’s work about extinction will involve participants searching Tate Modern on a mission to find the seven major glaciers that have been lost in the past decade. All formations will be illustrated on the gallery’s windows and walls using ultraviolet markers. Each discovery, a alert will occur and a reading will be performed to commemorate that specific ice mass.

Elsewhere, up in a northern town, a creative will be putting on a open display about our separation from nature, as well as hosting a shared meal, made using regional food. In another city, a participant is sharing her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which local singers embark on a mission to use music to heal flora in a green space.

Young Insights

Like Gallaccio, another participant will be engaging schoolchildren – on the scheduled date she is planning to decorate a cultural venue in kids’ letters and drawings that document their dreams and worries for the future. “Youthful expressions are powerful because they’re not as restricted as mature perspectives,” she says in her recorded message. “What children have to offer to the world is something quite unique and it may inspire a sense of responsibility from everyone. Children are innocent. They have concerns for tomorrow. But let’s not make it about worry – it should be about positivity and making sure that they get a future.”

Tributes and Thoughts

A participant’s work also appeals to children. Drawing on past experience, his Birds Can Fly involves illustrating avians and then performing as birds – and for Remember Nature day he is intending to address Liverpool’s famous Liver bird. He is also organizing a guided walk of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his long-term work over the last two decades. That ongoing series started after he experienced several events of discrimination on a one occasion. To counter this, Harfleet decided to plant a pansy at the spot where it happened and record it – the project has since spiralled to cover events experienced by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “Apparently wildlife enjoys them, so they’re a very temporary memorial.”

The artist selected the bloom not just for the direct association – it has long been a derogatory label – but also because its etymology comes from the French verb, penser, to think. “It was linked to a man who is contemplative, and that, of course, is a negative trait,” he says.

The project on the event day is to place blooms at additional sites and also refresh the memorials in places he has previously memorialised, all the while conversing with those on the itinerant journey about the incidents and his memories of them. “There’s been quite a few since I last planted,” he says mournfully.

Advancing Positively

He desires his work – and