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During 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger launched one of his final significant endeavors. Known for creating art that erases itself, 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 international event to honor the environment.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your participation in this worldwide call for a day of action to reflect on the environment on November 4th, 2015,” he stated, inviting cultural workers to resist the steady eradication of species. “Our responsibility 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 Inception of Environmental Reflection

And so the Nature Remembrance initiative was established, a day when artists across the country developed works to the escalating planetary emergency. An organizer, who cared for Metzger in his final years, remembers his sense of urgency. “There was a profound sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “I urged him – we must act now. Let’s not wait for sponsorship or for anyone to authorize this. Take action immediately.”

After Ten Years

After ten years, the project hasn’t quite triggered the broad uprising across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but organizers feel its impact can still be seen in campaigns like Culture Declares and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how makers handle the sustainability of their work. For this purpose she is relaunching it to celebrate its 10-year anniversary. Part of the 18 lead artists participating now are Cornelia Parker and prominent artists. Each has designed posters, shared messages, and produced installations set to be presented on November 4, 2025.

Cultivating Awareness

In conversation with the artist, she is working outdoors in Kent, assisting with planting apple trees that will develop into a spiral-shaped orchard. Engaging schoolchildren, her project is part creative piece and somewhat instructive. As she explains, the planning and planting sessions have already incorporated learning about maths (calculating the planting intervals), biology (discussing the genetic makeup), and history (mapping the backgrounds of how different apples came to the UK).

A lot of the apples were selected because they’ve got funny names such as the Bloody Butcher. We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ red juice

“Many of the apples were picked because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Bloody Butcher,” says Gallaccio. “We have one apple that produces scarlet-colored sap. Each has background narratives. The decio apple was brought over by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that fell from a tree and hit the scientist’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more actively aware of nature and the influence we have over it. “For a lot of them, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was urging them, next time they were out, to read the label and see their names and the source. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Cultural Projects Across the Country

Within the city, one artist’s Book of Loss will engage visitors searching Tate Modern on a journey to find the frozen formations that have been lost in recent years. Each glacier will be illustrated on the exhibition spaces using special pens. Each discovery, a alert will occur and a reading will be held to commemorate that particular glacier.

Meanwhile, up in Barrow-in-Furness, Maddi Nicholson will be presenting a open display about our separation from nature, as well as organizing a community dinner, prepared with organic, local produce. In another city, Uta Kögelsberger is streaming her musical project, in which community vocalists undertake a task to use music to heal flora in a local park.

Children’s Voices

Following this approach, Cornelia Parker will be engaging schoolchildren – on the day itself she is planning to fill Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in kids’ letters and drawings that document their hopes and fears for the future. “Kids’ art are powerful because they’re not as inhibited as grown-ups’,” she says in her public appeal. “Young people’s input to the world is something truly special and hopefully it will provoke a feeling of duty from everyone. Children are innocent. They have fears about the future. But it isn’t meant to be about worry – it should be about hope and our responsibility that they have a tomorrow.”

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 performing as birds – and for Remember Nature day he is planning to represent a local symbol. He is also conducting a guided walk of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his Pansy Project over the last two decades. The project began when he faced multiple occurrences of prejudice on a particular day. In response, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the location of every incident and document it – the project has since expanded to cover events experienced by other people across the world. “The flowers remain there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “Reportedly birds consume them, so they’re a very temporary memorial.”

Harfleet chose the flower not just for the clear connection – it has long been a term of homophobic abuse – but also because its origin is the French verb, penser, to think. “It became associated with a man who is thoughtful, and that, of course, is a terrible thing,” he says.

The project on 4 November is to plant pansies at new locations and also renew the tributes in places he has marked earlier, all the while talking to those on the itinerant journey about the incidents and his recollections. “We’ve seen quite a few since I last planted,” he says sadly.

Moving Forward with Hope

The artist wishes his work – and