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Back in 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his last significant endeavors. Famed for introducing self-destructive creations, Metzger had devoted his career to responding to global challenges from nuclear disarmament to plant-based living. Through a short video message, he issued a call for a worldwide initiative to honor the environment.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your participation in this worldwide call for a day of action to commemorate our planet on 4 November 2015,” he declared, encouraging artists and creatives to stand against the steady eradication of species. “The mission is to make audiences aware of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so art will enter realms that are inherently creative.”

The Creation of Remember Nature

And so the Nature Remembrance initiative was established, a day when creatives nationwide developed works to the ongoing environmental crisis. Jo Joelson, who cared for Metzger in his last days, notes his sense of urgency. “He had a great sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “I urged him – we must act now. We shouldn’t hold back for financial support or for anyone to approve this. We should proceed.”

After Ten Years

After ten years, the initiative did not sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but supporters think its impact can still be felt in initiatives like artist-led declarations and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how makers handle the eco-friendliness of their methods. That’s why she is reviving it to mark its decade milestone. Among the featured creators taking part currently are Cornelia Parker and other notable figures. They have all produced imagery, made video appeals, and produced installations set to be unveiled on the fourth of November next year.

Planting Hope

When speaking to one participant, she is on site in the countryside, helping plant apple trees that will develop into a coiled garden. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is part creative piece and somewhat instructive. As she explains, the planning and planting sessions have already incorporated learning about maths (calculating the gaps in the orchard), biology (discussing the hereditary traits), and history (tracing the journeys of how distinct varieties came to the UK).

A lot of the apples were picked because they’ve got funny names such as the other unusual varieties. We have one apple that releases scarcolored sap

“Several the apples were selected because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Duck’s Bill,” she explains. “We have one apple that produces red juice. Each has histories attached. 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.”

She hoped the children to be more consciously engaged of the natural world and the power we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you get at a supermarket, so I was prompting them, when they go shopping, to read the label and see their names and their origin. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Cultural Projects Throughout Britain

Within the city, a participant’s work about extinction will involve participants searching a major gallery on a quest to find the frozen formations that have been lost in modern times. Every ice sheet will be illustrated on the exhibition spaces using special pens. Each discovery, a chime will sound and a recitation will be held to commemorate that individual formation.

Elsewhere, up in Barrow-in-Furness, a creative will be hosting a public show about our disconnection from the land, as well as hosting a communal feast, prepared with organic, local produce. In another city, Uta Kögelsberger is sharing her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which community vocalists embark on a mission to sing plants back to health in a green space.

Children’s Voices

Like Gallaccio, a featured creator will be collaborating with schoolchildren – on the actual event she is aiming to cover Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in youth creations that express their dreams and worries for the tomorrow. “Children’s words and images are impactful because they’re not as restricted as grown-ups’,” she says in her call to action video. “The contributions of youth to the world is something truly special and perhaps it can inspire a feeling of duty from each person. Children are innocent. They have concerns for tomorrow. But let’s not make it about fear – it should be about optimism and making sure that they have a tomorrow.”

Memorials and Memory

A participant’s work also appeals to children. Drawing on past experience, his avian project involves illustrating avians and then performing as birds – and for Remember Nature day he is intending to represent a local symbol. He is also staging a guided walk of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his long-term work over the recent decades. That ongoing series commenced following he experienced multiple occurrences of discrimination on a particular day. To counter this, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the location of every incident and record it – the project has since grown to include incidents 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 short-lived memorial.”

Harfleet chose the pansy not just for the obvious reason – it has long been a slur – but also because its origin is the French verb, penser, to think. “People connected it with a man who is reflective, and that, of course, is a negative trait,” he says.

The plan on 4 November is to plant pansies at new locations and also refresh the memorials in places he has marked earlier, all the while talking to those on the itinerant journey about the incidents and his memories of them. “I’ve recorded quite a few after my previous work,” he says mournfully.

Progressing Optimistically

Harfleet hopes his work – and