🔗 Share this article

Back in 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his last important works. Recognized for pioneering art that erases itself, Metzger had dedicated his life to addressing human struggles from peace activism to ethical eating. In a brief video message, he requested support for a international event to honor the environment.

“I call upon you for your engagement in this global appeal for a day of action to commemorate our planet on 4 November 2015,” he announced, inviting cultural workers to stand against the continuing disappearance of living beings. “The mission is to help the public recall of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore realms that are naturally imaginative.”

The Creation of Nature Remembrance

In this way the Nature Remembrance initiative was established, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain created responses to the unfolding climate catastrophe. Jo Joelson, who cared for Metzger in his final years, remembers his feeling of immediacy. “There was a great sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “My advice was – let’s not mess around. No need to pause for funding or for anyone to approve this. We should proceed.”

Ten Years On

After ten years, the initiative may not have sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but organizers feel its influence can still be observed in movements like artist-led declarations and environmental protests, as well as in how makers handle the environmental impact of their practices. For this purpose she is restaging it to commemorate its 10-year anniversary. Among the key participants involved this time are Yu-Chen Wang and Anya Gallaccio. All participants have produced imagery, made video appeals, and developed pieces set to be unveiled on 4 November 2025.

Planting Hope

Interviewing Anya Gallaccio, she is working outdoors in a rural area, assisting with planting apple trees that will develop into a coiled garden. Engaging schoolchildren, her project is half artwork and half educational workshop. As she explains, the design and cultivation sessions have already included learning about mathematics (calculating the distances between trees), science (studying the genetic makeup), and history (mapping the backgrounds of how distinct varieties came to the UK).

Many of the apples were selected because they’ve got funny names such as the Duck’s Bill. We have one apple that produces red juice

“Several the apples were selected because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Duck’s Bill,” she explains. “We have one apple that releases crimson liquid. Every one carries histories attached. The decio apple was imported by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that descended from a tree and struck the scientist’s head.”

Gallaccio wanted the children to be more thoughtfully connected of the natural world 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 the variety and their origin. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Cultural Projects Across the Country

Within the city, Youngsook Choi’s work about extinction will involve participants searching a major gallery on a journey to find the frozen formations that have been vanished in the past decade. Each glacier will be illustrated on the museum surfaces using special pens. Each discovery, a chime will sound and a recitation will be held to remember that particular glacier.

At the same time, up in Barrow-in-Furness, an artist will be putting on a public show about our alienation from the environment, as well as organizing a shared meal, cooked from sustainable ingredients. Further north, an artist is streaming her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which community vocalists undertake a task to perform for vegetation in a local park.

Children’s Voices

Like Gallaccio, a featured creator will be working with schoolchildren – on the scheduled date she is hoping to decorate Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in children’s artwork that express their aspirations and concerns for the years ahead. “Kids’ art are compelling because they’re not as trammelled as grown-ups’,” she says in her call to action video. “What children have to offer to the world is something truly special and perhaps it can inspire a awareness of obligation from everyone. Children are innocent. They have concerns for tomorrow. But it isn’t meant to be about worry – it should be about optimism and making sure that they see a better world.”

Memorials and Memory

Paul Harfleet’s work also resonates for 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 represent an iconic figure. He is also organizing a walking tour of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his long-term work over the recent decades. The project commenced following he faced multiple occurrences of discrimination on a particular day. As a reaction, Harfleet decided to plant a pansy at the site of each occurrence and photograph it – the project has since grown to cover events experienced by other people across the world. “The flowers remain there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “Apparently birds consume them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

Harfleet chose the bloom 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. “It became associated with a man who is reflective, and that, of course, is a terrible thing,” he says.

The intention on Remember Nature day is to plant pansies at new locations and also renew the tributes in places he has honored before, all the while conversing with those on the itinerant journey about the events and his personal experiences. “We’ve seen quite a few since I last planted,” he says mournfully.

Moving Forward with Hope

Harfleet hopes his work – and