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During 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger launched one of his ultimate major projects. Recognized for creating self-destructive creations, Metzger had devoted his career to responding to human struggles from peace activism to ethical eating. In a brief video message, he made a plea for a international event to remember nature.

“This is my appeal for your participation in this international summons for a day of action to commemorate our planet on November 4th, 2015,” he declared, encouraging makers and thinkers to resist the steady eradication 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 territories that are naturally imaginative.”

The Creation of Remember Nature

In this way Remember Nature came into being, a day when artists across the country produced pieces to the unfolding climate catastrophe. An organizer, who cared for Metzger in his final years, remembers his feeling of immediacy. “He had a profound sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “My advice was – we must act now. We shouldn’t hold back for funding or for anyone to approve this. Take action immediately.”

A Decade Later

After ten years, Remember Nature may not have sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had dreamed of, but supporters think its influence can still be observed in initiatives like artist-led declarations and environmental protests, as well as in how artists approach the sustainability of their work. For this purpose she is restaging it to mark its 10-year anniversary. Part of the 18 lead artists involved this time are Cornelia Parker and Anya Gallaccio. All participants have designed posters, made video appeals, and produced installations set to be unveiled on the fourth of November next year.

Cultivating Awareness

In conversation with the artist, she is working outdoors in a rural area, assisting with planting apple trees that will grow to form a coiled garden. Working with schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and part learning experience. She describes, the design and cultivation sessions have already incorporated learning about mathematics (calculating the distances between trees), genetics (exploring the apple’s DNA), and geography (mapping the journeys of how various cultivars were introduced to England).

A lot of the apples were selected because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Duck’s Bill. We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ red juice

“A lot of the apples were chosen because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Duck’s Bill,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ red juice. Each has background narratives. The ancient variety was imported by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that dropped off a tree and landed on the physicist’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more consciously engaged of the environment and the control we have over it. “For a lot of them, apples were just things you buy from a supermarket, so I was encouraging them, on their next shopping trip, to check the packaging and see their names and where they were grown. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Throughout Britain

Within the city, one artist’s project on disappearance will engage visitors looking through an art institution on a quest to find the ice masses that have been vanished in recent years. Every ice sheet will be drawn on the exhibition spaces using invisible ink. Whenever one is found, a bell will ring and a recitation will be held to commemorate that individual formation.

Meanwhile, up in Barrow-in-Furness, an artist will be hosting a public show about our disconnection from the land, as well as organizing a shared meal, cooked from sustainable ingredients. Further north, a participant is sharing her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which regional performers embark on a mission to sing plants back to health in a local park.

Youth Perspectives

Similar to other artists, a featured creator will be collaborating with schoolchildren – on the day itself she is hoping to fill Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in youth creations that document their dreams and worries for the future. “Kids’ art are compelling because they’re not as inhibited as adults’,” she says in her recorded message. “What children have to offer to the world is something truly special and it may inspire a sense of responsibility from everyone. Youth is pure. They have anxieties about what’s next. But let’s not make it about worry – it should be about positivity and our responsibility that they have a tomorrow.”

Tributes and Thoughts

Another artist’s work also appeals to children. With a background in performance, his feathered initiative involves sketching winged creatures and then embodying them – and for Remember Nature day he is planning to represent a local symbol. He is also organizing a itinerant journey of the city, stopping at places that have been part of his Pansy Project over the recent decades. The project began when he endured three incidents of discrimination on a one occasion. To counter this, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the site of each occurrence and photograph it – the project has since spiralled to include incidents shared by other people across the world. “The flowers remain there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “It seems birds consume them, so they’re a short-lived memorial.”

Harfleet chose the pansy not just for the direct association – it has long been a derogatory label – but also because its etymology comes from the French verb, penser, to think. “It was linked to a man who is thoughtful, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The intention on the event day is to plant pansies at fresh spots and also replant flowers in places he has honored before, all the while discussing with those on the itinerant journey about the events and his memories of them. “We’ve seen quite a few after my previous work,” he says sadly.

Moving Forward with Hope

He desires his work – and