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Back in 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger launched one of his final significant endeavors. Recognized for introducing auto-destructive art, Metzger had devoted his career to confronting societal issues from anti-nuclear advocacy to plant-based living. In a brief video message, he made a plea for a international event to remember nature.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your engagement in this worldwide call for a day of action to remember nature on November 4th, 2015,” he stated, inviting cultural workers to oppose the continuing disappearance of living beings. “Our task is to help the public recall of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore realms that are naturally imaginative.”

The Inception of Nature Remembrance

And so the Nature Remembrance initiative was established, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain produced pieces to the escalating planetary emergency. One of the curators, who supported Metzger in his later life, remembers his feeling of immediacy. “I sensed a great sense of urgency for him at the close of his days,” she says. “I just said – we must act now. We shouldn’t hold back for sponsorship or for anyone to green light this. Take action immediately.”

Ten Years On

Ten years later, the project hasn’t quite sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but Joelson believes its legacy can still be observed in initiatives like cultural advocacy groups and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how makers handle the eco-friendliness of their practices. This is the reason she is reviving it to celebrate its 10-year anniversary. Part of the key participants involved this time are A Man Called Adam and other notable figures. All participants have created visual art, recorded calls to action, and developed pieces set to be unveiled on 4 November 2025.

Planting Hope

In conversation with the artist, she is out in a field in the countryside, assisting with planting apple trees that will develop into a coiled garden. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is half artwork and half educational workshop. She describes, the preparation and sowing sessions have already involved learning about measurements (spacing the planting intervals), biology (discussing the genetic makeup), and origins (mapping the journeys of how various cultivars arrived in Britain).

A lot of the apples were picked because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Bloody Butcher. We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ scarcolored sap

“Several the apples were picked because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Duck’s Bill,” she explains. “We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ scarlet-colored sap. Every one carries histories attached. The decio apple was brought over by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that fell from a tree and struck the scientist’s head.”

Gallaccio wanted the children to be more actively aware of nature and the power we have over it. “For a lot of them, apples were just things you get at a supermarket, so I was urging them, on their next shopping trip, to look on the bag and see the variety and where they were grown. Hopefully it says Kent!”

Artistic Responses Across the Country

Within the city, one artist’s project on disappearance will involve participants looking through a major gallery on a journey to find the frozen formations that have been vanished in the past decade. Every ice sheet will be depicted on the museum surfaces using invisible ink. Each discovery, a bell will ring and a performance will be performed to commemorate that particular glacier.

At the same time, up in another location, a creative will be hosting a open display about our separation from nature, as well as organizing a communal feast, cooked from sustainable ingredients. Over in Newcastle, a participant is streaming her musical project, in which regional performers begin a project to sing plants back to health in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Young Insights

Following this approach, another participant will be engaging schoolchildren – on the scheduled date she is planning to decorate a cultural venue in kids’ letters and drawings that document their hopes and fears 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 truly special and hopefully it will inspire a awareness of obligation from each person. Children are innocent. They have concerns for tomorrow. But it isn’t meant to be about anxiety – it should be about positivity and our responsibility that they get a future.”

Memorials and Memory

Paul Harfleet’s work also resonates for children. As a former drag queen, his Birds Can Fly involves sketching winged creatures and then dressing up as them – and for the initiative he is planning to tackle Liverpool’s famous Liver bird. He is also organizing a itinerant journey of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his ongoing series over the last two decades. The project started after he experienced multiple occurrences of prejudice on a one occasion. To counter this, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the site of each occurrence and record it – the project has since spiralled to incorporate experiences reported by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they fade quickly,” says Harfleet. “Reportedly wildlife enjoys them, so they’re a short-lived memorial.”

The artist selected 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. “It was linked to a man who is thoughtful, and that, of course, is a negative trait,” he says.

The plan on 4 November is to plant pansies at additional sites and also refresh the memorials in places he has previously memorialised, all the while talking to those on the guided walk about the incidents and his recollections. “There’s been quite a few after my previous work,” he says mournfully.

Progressing Optimistically

Harfleet hopes his work – and