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During 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his ultimate important works. Recognized for introducing auto-destructive art, Metzger had spent a lifetime to addressing societal issues from peace activism to ethical eating. Through a short video message, he made a plea for a international event to remember nature.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your involvement in this international summons for a day of action to remember nature on 4 November 2015,” he announced, encouraging artists and creatives to oppose the continuing disappearance of living beings. “Our responsibility is to remind people of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so art will enter territories that are inherently creative.”

The Creation of Nature Remembrance

Thus the Nature Remembrance initiative was born, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain developed works to the ongoing environmental crisis. One of the curators, who cared for Metzger in his last days, remembers his feeling of immediacy. “There was a great sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “I urged him – don’t delay. Let’s not wait for funding or for anyone to green light this. Let’s just do it.”

A Decade Later

Ten years later, the initiative did not sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but supporters think its legacy can still be felt in campaigns like artist-led declarations and environmental protests, as well as in how makers handle the sustainability of their practices. This is the reason she is relaunching it to mark its ten-year mark. Among the key participants taking part currently are Yu-Chen Wang and Anya Gallaccio. Each has created visual art, made video appeals, and created artworks set to be unveiled on 4 November 2025.

Planting Hope

In conversation with the artist, she is working outdoors in a rural area, cultivating apple trees that will create a circular grove. Working with schoolchildren, her project is half artwork and somewhat instructive. According to her, the preparation and sowing sessions have already included learning about mathematics (calculating the distances between trees), genetics (studying the hereditary traits), and history (tracing the stories of how various cultivars arrived in Britain).

A lot of the apples were selected because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Duck’s Bill. We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ scarcolored sap

“A lot 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 crimson liquid. Every one carries stories behind them. The historical cultivar was imported by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that descended from a tree and hit the scientist’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more consciously engaged of nature and the power we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was prompting them, next time they were out, to check the packaging and see their names and where they were grown. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Artistic Responses Nationwide

At the capital, a participant’s Book of Loss will include attendees looking through Tate Modern on a quest to find the seven major glaciers that have been disappeared in recent years. Every ice sheet will be drawn on the exhibition spaces using special pens. Each discovery, a alert will occur and a reading will be performed to commemorate that specific ice mass.

At the same time, up in another location, an artist will be putting on a free exhibition about our disconnection from the land, as well as organizing a community dinner, cooked from organic, local produce. In another city, an artist is sharing her musical project, in which regional performers undertake a task to use music to heal flora in a green space.

Youth Perspectives

Like Gallaccio, Cornelia Parker will be engaging schoolchildren – on the day itself she is hoping to decorate an art space in youth creations that capture their hopes and fears for the future. “Kids’ art are powerful because they’re not as trammelled as grown-ups’,” she says in her recorded message. “The contributions of youth to the world is something distinctive and hopefully it will provoke a feeling of duty from us all. Kids are unbiased. They have fears about the future. But it isn’t meant to be about fear – it should be about positivity and our responsibility that they have a tomorrow.”

Remembrance and Reflection

Another artist’s work also connects with children. Drawing on past experience, his avian project involves illustrating avians and then dressing up as them – and for the event he is planning to tackle a local symbol. He is also organizing a walking tour of the city, stopping at places that have been part of his ongoing series over the recent decades. That ongoing series began when he endured three incidents of prejudice on a one occasion. As a reaction, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the site of each occurrence and photograph it – the project has since spiralled to incorporate experiences reported by other people across the world. “The flowers remain there but they fade quickly,” says Harfleet. “Reportedly pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

Harfleet chose the flower not just for the direct association – it has long been a derogatory label – but also because its origin is the French verb, penser, to think. “It was linked to a man who is reflective, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The intention on 4 November is to place blooms at additional sites and also replant flowers in places he has marked earlier, all the while conversing with those on the itinerant journey about the occurrences and his memories of them. “There’s been quite a few since I last planted,” he says sadly.

Moving Forward with Hope

He desires his work – and