🔗 Share this article

In 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his final important works. Known for pioneering art that erases itself, Metzger had dedicated his life to confronting societal issues from anti-nuclear advocacy to ethical eating. Via a concise video message, he issued a call for a global day of action to remember nature.

“I call upon you for your engagement in this international summons for a day of action to reflect on the environment on 4 November 2015,” he stated, inviting artists and creatives to resist the ongoing loss of species. “Our responsibility is to help the public recall of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so art will enter territories that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Creation of Remember Nature

And so the Nature Remembrance initiative came into being, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain developed works to the escalating planetary emergency. An organizer, who supported Metzger in his later life, remembers his feeling of immediacy. “He had a profound sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “I just said – let’s not mess around. We shouldn’t hold back for financial support or for anyone to green light this. Let’s just do it.”

After Ten Years

After ten years, the project hasn’t quite incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but supporters think its influence can still be felt in movements like Culture Declares and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how makers handle the eco-friendliness of their methods. For this purpose she is restaging it to celebrate its decade milestone. Part of the featured creators participating now are Cornelia Parker and Anya Gallaccio. They have all produced imagery, made video appeals, and developed pieces set to be revealed on 4 November 2025.

Cultivating Awareness

Interviewing Anya Gallaccio, she is on site in the countryside, assisting with planting apple trees that will create a coiled garden. Engaging schoolchildren, her project is half artwork and half educational workshop. According to her, the planning and planting sessions have already included learning about measurements (spacing the distances between trees), genetics (exploring the hereditary traits), and history (mapping the backgrounds of how various cultivars came to the UK).

A lot of the apples were chosen because they’ve got funny names such as the Bloody Butcher. We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ red juice

“Many of the apples were picked because they’ve got funny names such as the Bloody Butcher,” she explains. “We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ red juice. Every one carries stories behind them. The ancient variety was imported by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that descended from a tree and landed on Isaac Newton’s head.”

Gallaccio wanted the children to be more actively aware of the environment and the influence we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you buy from a supermarket, so I was prompting them, when they go shopping, to read the label and see their names and the source. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Cultural Projects Throughout Britain

In London, Youngsook Choi’s work about extinction will include attendees exploring an art institution on a journey to find the seven major glaciers that have been vanished in the past decade. Every ice sheet will be depicted on the museum surfaces using special pens. When located, a chime will sound and a recitation will be conducted to honor that specific ice mass.

Elsewhere, up in Barrow-in-Furness, Maddi Nicholson will be putting on a open display about our alienation from the environment, as well as organizing a shared meal, cooked from regional food. Further north, Uta Kögelsberger is streaming her musical project, in which local singers embark on a mission to perform for vegetation in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Children’s Voices

Following this approach, a featured creator will be engaging schoolchildren – on the day itself she is planning to cover an art space in children’s artwork that capture their hopes and fears for the future. “Children’s words and images are impactful because they’re not as trammelled as adults’,” she says in her call to action video. “What children have to offer to the world is something distinctive and hopefully it will provoke a sense of responsibility from each person. Youth is pure. They have anxieties about what’s next. But this shouldn’t be about anxiety – it should be about optimism and making sure that they get a future.”

Memorials and Memory

Paul Harfleet’s work also resonates for children. As a former drag queen, his avian project involves illustrating avians and then dressing up as them – and for the initiative he is aiming to tackle a local symbol. He is also staging a guided walk of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his ongoing series over the last two decades. That ongoing series started after he faced multiple occurrences of discrimination on a one occasion. To counter this, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the spot where it happened and record it – the project has since grown to include incidents reported by other people across the world. “The flowers remain there but they fade quickly,” says Harfleet. “Apparently birds consume them, so they’re a short-lived memorial.”

The artist selected the flower not just for the obvious reason – it has long been a derogatory label – but also because its origin is the French verb, penser, to think. “It became associated with a man who is reflective, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The intention on Remember Nature day is to plant pansies at additional sites and also renew the tributes in places he has marked earlier, all the while conversing with those on the guided walk about the incidents and his personal experiences. “I’ve recorded quite a few after my previous work,” he says mournfully.

Advancing Positively

The artist wishes his work – and