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During 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his ultimate significant endeavors. Known for creating self-destructive creations, Metzger had devoted his career to responding to global challenges from nuclear disarmament to ethical eating. In a brief video message, he made a plea for a global day of action to celebrate the natural world.

“This is my appeal for your engagement in this international summons for a day of action to reflect on the environment on November 4th, 2015,” he declared, urging artists and creatives to oppose the ongoing loss 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 Birth of Remember Nature

And so Remember Nature came into being, a day when artists across the country developed works to the unfolding climate catastrophe. One of the curators, who cared for Metzger in his final years, remembers his feeling of immediacy. “There was a strong sense of urgency for him at the close of his days,” she says. “I urged him – let’s not mess around. Let’s not wait for funding or for anyone to approve this. We should proceed.”

Ten Years On

After ten years, Remember Nature did not triggered the broad uprising across the arts that Metzger had envisioned, but Joelson believes its impact can still be felt in initiatives like cultural advocacy groups and environmental protests, as well as in how makers handle the eco-friendliness of their methods. For this purpose she is restaging it to commemorate its 10-year anniversary. Part of the 18 lead artists taking part currently are A Man Called Adam and other notable figures. They have all created visual art, recorded calls to action, and created artworks set to be revealed on November 4, 2025.

Planting Hope

In conversation with one participant, she is working outdoors in the countryside, helping plant apple trees that will develop into a circular grove. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is half artwork and half educational workshop. She describes, the planning and planting sessions have already incorporated learning about maths (calculating the planting intervals), biology (exploring the apple’s DNA), and geography (researching the stories of how various cultivars were introduced to England).

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

“Many of the apples were chosen because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Duck’s Bill,” says Gallaccio. “We have one apple that produces crimson liquid. Each has stories behind them. The decio apple was imported by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that fell from a tree and hit Isaac Newton’s head.”

Gallaccio wanted the children to be more thoughtfully connected of the environment and the influence we have over it. “To many of them, apples were just things you buy from a supermarket, so I was prompting them, when they go shopping, to read the label and see the variety and the source. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Nationwide

In London, one artist’s project on disappearance will involve participants exploring Tate Modern on a mission to find the frozen formations that have been disappeared in recent years. All formations will be illustrated on the exhibition spaces using ultraviolet markers. Whenever one is found, a alert will occur and a recitation will be conducted to remember that specific ice mass.

Meanwhile, up in another location, a creative will be presenting a free exhibition about our alienation from the environment, as well as organizing a shared meal, cooked from organic, local produce. Further north, an artist is broadcasting her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which local singers embark on a mission to sing plants back to health in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Children’s Voices

Like Gallaccio, a featured creator will be engaging schoolchildren – on the day itself she is planning to fill an art space in children’s artwork that document their dreams and worries for the future. “Youthful expressions are compelling because they’re not as inhibited as grown-ups’,” she says in her public appeal. “What children have to offer to the world is something quite unique and hopefully it will provoke a sense of responsibility from everyone. Children are innocent. They have concerns for tomorrow. But this shouldn’t be about anxiety – it should be about hope and making sure that they see a better world.”

Memorials and Memory

Paul Harfleet’s work also resonates for children. As a former drag queen, his Birds Can Fly involves drawing birds and then dressing up as them – and for the event he is intending to represent Liverpool’s famous Liver bird. He is also conducting a itinerant journey of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his ongoing series over the recent decades. This endeavor started after he endured multiple occurrences of prejudice on a particular day. As a reaction, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the spot where it happened and photograph it – the project has since spiralled to include incidents shared by other people across the world. “I place the plants there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “Apparently pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

Harfleet chose the pansy not just for the direct association – it has long been a slur – but also because its name derives from the French verb, penser, to think. “It became associated with a man who is contemplative, 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 replant flowers in places he has previously memorialised, all the while conversing with those on the walking tour about the occurrences and his memories of them. “I’ve recorded quite a few following earlier installations,” he says with regret.

Moving Forward with Hope

He desires his work – and