🔗 Share this article

Back in 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger initiated one of his final significant endeavors. Recognized for pioneering art that erases itself, Metzger had dedicated his life to responding to societal issues from anti-nuclear advocacy to vegetarianism. Via a concise video message, he issued a call for a worldwide initiative to celebrate the natural world.

“This is my appeal for your involvement in this international summons for a day of action to reflect on the environment on the fourth of November, 2015,” he declared, urging artists and creatives to resist the continuing disappearance of living beings. “Our responsibility is to remind people of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore territories that are naturally imaginative.”

The Inception of Nature Remembrance

And so Remember Nature came into being, a day when creatives nationwide created responses to the unfolding climate catastrophe. One of the curators, who cared for Metzger in his final years, notes his drive for action. “I sensed a profound sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “I just said – let’s not mess around. No need to pause for funding or for anyone to green light this. Take action immediately.”

A Decade Later

Ten years later, the project may not have triggered the broad uprising across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but supporters think its influence can still be observed in campaigns like artist-led declarations and environmental protests, as well as in how artists approach the environmental impact of their practices. For this purpose she is restaging it to commemorate its 10-year anniversary. Among the 18 lead artists participating now are Yu-Chen Wang and prominent artists. Each has created visual art, recorded calls to action, and created artworks set to be revealed on 4 November 2025.

Cultivating Awareness

In conversation with Anya Gallaccio, she is working outdoors in a rural area, cultivating apple trees that will create a circular grove. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is part creative piece and part learning experience. As she explains, the preparation and sowing sessions have already included learning about mathematics (calculating the distances between trees), genetics (exploring the apple’s DNA), and origins (mapping the stories of how distinct varieties arrived in Britain).

Many of the apples were picked because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Duck’s Bill. We have one apple that produces crimson liquid

“Several the apples were picked because they’ve got funny names such as the Duck’s Bill,” she explains. “We have one apple that releases crimson liquid. Each has stories behind them. The ancient variety was introduced by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that dropped off a tree and hit Isaac Newton’s head.”

The artist aimed the children to be more consciously engaged of nature and the control we have over it. “For a lot of them, apples were just things you buy from a supermarket, so I was urging them, on their next shopping trip, to read the label and see the variety and the source. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Artistic Responses Nationwide

At the capital, Youngsook Choi’s Book of Loss will involve participants searching a major gallery on a quest to find the ice masses that have been disappeared in the past decade. Each glacier will be depicted on the exhibition spaces using invisible ink. Whenever one is found, a alert will occur and a recitation will be conducted to remember that particular glacier.

At the same time, up in a northern town, an artist will be hosting a open display about our disconnection from the land, as well as organizing a community dinner, cooked from sustainable ingredients. In another city, Uta Kögelsberger is broadcasting her environmental performance, in which community vocalists embark on a mission to sing plants back to health in a local park.

Youth Perspectives

Like Gallaccio, another participant will be working with schoolchildren – on the actual event she is hoping to fill an art space in youth creations that document their hopes and fears for the years ahead. “Kids’ art are compelling because they’re not as trammelled as adults’,” she says in her call to action video. “Young people’s input to the world is something quite unique and perhaps it can provoke a feeling of duty from each person. Children are innocent. They have concerns for tomorrow. But this shouldn’t be about fear – it should be about optimism and making sure that they get a future.”

Tributes and Thoughts

Paul Harfleet’s work also appeals to children. With a background in performance, his avian project involves drawing birds and then dressing up as them – and for Remember Nature day he is planning to tackle a local symbol. He is also staging a walking tour of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his Pansy Project over the past twenty years. That ongoing series commenced following he endured multiple occurrences of prejudice on a particular day. As a reaction, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the site of each occurrence and document it – the project has since spiralled to cover events experienced by other people across the world. “I place the plants there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “Apparently wildlife enjoys them, so they’re a short-lived memorial.”

The artist selected the bloom not just for the direct association – it has long been a term of homophobic abuse – but also because its origin is 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 project on the event day is to place blooms at fresh spots and also replant flowers in places he has marked earlier, all the while talking to those on the walking tour about the incidents and his personal experiences. “I’ve recorded quite a few after my previous work,” he says mournfully.

Progressing Optimistically

The artist wishes his work – and