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In 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger launched one of his last important works. Recognized for introducing auto-destructive art, Metzger had spent a lifetime to responding to human struggles from nuclear disarmament to plant-based living. Via a concise video message, he requested support for a worldwide initiative to remember nature.

“I call upon you for your engagement in this global appeal for a day of action to remember nature on November 4th, 2015,” he announced, encouraging makers and thinkers to stand against the ongoing loss of flora and fauna. “Our task is to make audiences aware of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore realms that are inherently creative.”

The Inception of Environmental Reflection

And so Remember Nature was established, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain developed works to the unfolding climate catastrophe. One of the curators, who supported Metzger in his last days, notes his drive for action. “He had a strong sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “I just said – let’s not mess around. No need to pause for sponsorship or for anyone to authorize this. We should proceed.”

Ten Years On

A decade on, the project hasn’t quite triggered the broad uprising across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but organizers feel its legacy can still be observed in movements like artist-led declarations and climate activism networks, as well as in how artists approach the sustainability of their practices. This is the reason she is restaging it to mark its ten-year mark. Part of the featured creators participating now are Yu-Chen Wang and prominent artists. They have all produced imagery, made video appeals, and created artworks set to be unveiled on 4 November 2025.

Planting Hope

Interviewing Anya Gallaccio, she is working outdoors in a rural area, cultivating apple trees that will grow to form a coiled garden. Engaging schoolchildren, her project is half artwork and half educational workshop. According to her, the planning and planting sessions have already involved learning about maths (measuring out the planting intervals), biology (discussing the apple’s DNA), and geography (tracing the backgrounds of how various cultivars came to the UK).

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

“Several the apples were selected because they’ve got funny names such as the Bloody Butcher,” says Gallaccio. “We have one apple that produces crimson liquid. Every one carries background narratives. The decio apple was imported by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that descended from a tree and struck the physicist’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more actively aware of the environment and the influence we have over it. “For a lot of them, apples were just things you buy from a supermarket, so I was encouraging them, when they go shopping, to look on the bag and see the variety and where they were grown. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Artistic Responses Across the Country

Within the city, a participant’s Book of Loss will include attendees searching a major gallery on a mission to find the ice masses that have been lost in the past decade. All formations will be illustrated on the exhibition spaces using ultraviolet markers. Whenever one is found, a chime will sound and a performance will be conducted to remember that particular glacier.

At the same time, up in a northern town, a creative will be hosting a free exhibition about our separation from nature, as well as holding a community dinner, made using organic, local produce. Over in Newcastle, an artist is broadcasting her musical project, in which regional performers embark on a mission to sing plants back to health in a green space.

Young Insights

Like Gallaccio, a featured creator will be collaborating with schoolchildren – on the actual event she is hoping to fill Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in kids’ letters and drawings that document their dreams and worries for the years ahead. “Children’s words and images are compelling because they’re not as trammelled as mature perspectives,” she says in her call to action video. “Young people’s input to the world is something distinctive and hopefully it will stimulate a feeling of duty from us all. Kids are unbiased. They have fears about the future. But let’s not make it about anxiety – it should be about hope and us ensuring that they get a future.”

Memorials and Memory

Paul Harfleet’s work also connects with children. Drawing on past experience, his feathered initiative involves illustrating avians and then embodying them – and for the event he is planning to address a local symbol. He is also staging a guided walk of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his Pansy Project over the last two decades. That ongoing series commenced following he experienced three incidents of discrimination on a one occasion. To counter this, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the site of each occurrence and record it – the project has since expanded to cover events experienced by other people across the world. “I place the plants there but they fade quickly,” says Harfleet. “It seems wildlife enjoys them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

The artist selected the pansy not just for the obvious reason – it has long been a term of homophobic abuse – but also because its etymology comes from 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 the event day is to place blooms at fresh spots and also renew the tributes in places he has honored before, all the while talking to those on the walking tour about the events and his personal experiences. “We’ve seen quite a few after my previous work,” he says mournfully.

Advancing Positively

Harfleet hopes his work – and