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Back in 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger initiated one of his last important works. Famed for pioneering auto-destructive art, Metzger had devoted his career to addressing human struggles from anti-nuclear advocacy to plant-based living. Via a concise video message, he requested support for a international event to remember nature.

“This is my appeal for your engagement in this international summons for a day of action to commemorate our planet on 4 November 2015,” he declared, urging cultural workers to resist the ongoing loss of living beings. “Our task is to make audiences aware of the diversity and intricacy in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore territories that are naturally imaginative.”

The Inception of Environmental Reflection

Thus the Nature Remembrance initiative was established, a day when artists across the country developed works to the escalating planetary emergency. An organizer, who worked closely with Metzger in his last days, remembers his feeling of immediacy. “He had a profound sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “My advice was – let’s not mess around. No need to pause for sponsorship or for anyone to authorize this. Let’s just do it.”

After Ten Years

A decade on, Remember Nature did not incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had dreamed of, but supporters think its influence can still be seen in campaigns like Culture Declares and climate activism networks, as well as in how creatives consider the eco-friendliness of their practices. For this purpose she is reviving it to commemorate its 10-year anniversary. Among the 18 lead artists involved this time are Yu-Chen Wang and prominent artists. All participants have designed posters, recorded calls to action, and produced installations set to be revealed on 4 November 2025.

Sowing Change

Interviewing one participant, she is out in a field in a rural area, cultivating apple trees that will develop into a circular grove. Working with schoolchildren, her project is part creative piece and part learning experience. As she explains, the preparation and sowing sessions have already included learning about mathematics (spacing the gaps in the orchard), genetics (studying the apple’s DNA), and origins (tracing the backgrounds of how different apples came to the UK).

A lot of the apples were chosen because they’ve got amusing labels such as the other unusual varieties. We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ scarcolored sap

“Many of the apples were picked because they’ve got amusing labels such as the other unusual varieties,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that produces red juice. Each has stories behind them. The historical cultivar was brought over by the Romans. The local breed is the apple that descended from a tree and landed on the scientist’s head.”

The artist aimed the children to be more thoughtfully connected of the environment 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, on their next shopping trip, to check the packaging and see the variety and where they were grown. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Cultural Projects Across the Country

At the capital, Youngsook Choi’s project on disappearance will engage visitors exploring a major gallery on a mission to find the seven major glaciers that have been disappeared in the past decade. All formations will be illustrated on the exhibition spaces using ultraviolet markers. Each discovery, a bell will ring and a recitation will be held to honor that individual formation.

Elsewhere, up in a northern town, Maddi Nicholson will be hosting a public show about our alienation from the environment, as well as organizing a communal feast, cooked from sustainable ingredients. In another city, Uta Kögelsberger is sharing her environmental performance, in which community vocalists begin a project to perform for vegetation in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Children’s Voices

Similar to other artists, another participant will be working with schoolchildren – on the actual event she is aiming to fill a cultural venue in children’s artwork that document their aspirations and concerns for the tomorrow. “Youthful expressions are powerful because they’re not as restricted as grown-ups’,” she says in her public appeal. “What children have to offer to the world is something truly special and it may stimulate a sense of responsibility from each person. Children are innocent. They have anxieties about what’s next. But it isn’t meant to be about anxiety – it should be about positivity and making sure that they see a better world.”

Tributes and Thoughts

A participant’s work also appeals to children. As a former drag queen, his feathered initiative involves illustrating avians and then embodying them – and for the event he is aiming to tackle Liverpool’s famous Liver bird. He is also staging a guided walk of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his ongoing series over the recent decades. The project commenced following he endured several events of prejudice on a one occasion. To counter this, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the site of each occurrence and photograph it – the project has since expanded to incorporate experiences shared by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “It seems pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a very temporary memorial.”

He picked the pansy not just for the clear connection – it has long been a slur – but also because its name derives from the French verb, penser, to think. “People connected it with a man who is thoughtful, and that, of course, is a negative trait,” he says.

The project on Remember Nature day is to place blooms at new locations and also refresh the memorials in places he has honored before, all the while talking to those on the walking tour about the incidents and his personal experiences. “There’s been quite a few since I last planted,” he says mournfully.

Advancing Positively

The artist wishes his work – and