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During 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger launched one of his last major projects. Known for creating auto-destructive art, Metzger had devoted his career to addressing global challenges from nuclear disarmament to plant-based living. In a brief video message, he made a plea for a worldwide initiative to celebrate the natural world.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your participation in this international summons for a day of action to reflect on the environment on 4 November 2015,” he announced, urging artists and creatives to stand against the ongoing loss of species. “Our responsibility is to make audiences aware of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so art will enter realms that are naturally imaginative.”

The Creation of Remember Nature

In this way the Nature Remembrance initiative was established, a day when artists across the country created responses to the escalating planetary emergency. One of the curators, who cared for Metzger in his last days, notes his sense of urgency. “He had a strong sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “I urged him – don’t delay. We shouldn’t hold back for funding or for anyone to green light this. Let’s just do it.”

A Decade Later

Ten years later, the initiative may not have incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had envisioned, but organizers feel its legacy can still be seen in campaigns like cultural advocacy groups and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how creatives consider the sustainability of their methods. This is the reason she is restaging it to commemorate its 10-year anniversary. Included in the 18 lead artists taking part currently are Cornelia Parker and prominent artists. They have all created visual art, recorded calls to action, and developed pieces set to be unveiled on the fourth of November next year.

Sowing Change

Interviewing the artist, she is out in a field in a rural area, assisting with planting apple trees that will develop into a circular grove. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and part learning experience. As she explains, the planning and planting sessions have already incorporated learning about mathematics (measuring out the distances between trees), science (studying the genetic makeup), and geography (researching the backgrounds of how various cultivars arrived in Britain).

Many of the apples were chosen because they’ve got humorous titles such as the other unusual varieties. We have one apple that produces red juice

“Several the apples were picked because they’ve got humorous titles such as the other unusual varieties,” she explains. “We have one apple that produces scarlet-colored sap. Every one carries histories attached. The ancient variety was brought over by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that dropped off a tree and landed on the physicist’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 get at a supermarket, so I was encouraging them, next time they were out, to look on the bag and see what they’re called and their origin. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Artistic Responses Throughout Britain

In London, Youngsook Choi’s work about extinction will include attendees searching Tate Modern on a journey to find the seven major glaciers that have been disappeared in the past decade. Every ice sheet will be depicted on the museum surfaces using special pens. Each discovery, a alert will occur and a recitation will be performed to commemorate that particular glacier.

At the same time, up in another location, Maddi Nicholson will be putting on a public show about our disconnection from the land, as well as organizing a community dinner, made using regional food. Further north, Uta Kögelsberger is broadcasting her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which regional performers undertake a task to perform for vegetation in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Children’s Voices

Like Gallaccio, Cornelia Parker will be engaging schoolchildren – on the day itself she is hoping to fill a cultural venue in youth creations that document their hopes and fears for the future. “Children’s words and images are compelling because they’re not as inhibited as mature perspectives,” she says in her call to action video. “The contributions of youth to the world is something quite unique and hopefully it will stimulate a feeling of duty from us all. Youth is pure. They have anxieties about what’s next. But it isn’t meant to be about fear – it should be about hope and our responsibility that they have a tomorrow.”

Tributes and Thoughts

A participant’s work also resonates for children. With a background in performance, his avian project involves illustrating avians and then dressing up as them – and for the initiative he is aiming to represent Liverpool’s famous Liver bird. He is also organizing a walking tour of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his long-term work over the last two decades. The project commenced following he faced several events of prejudice on a particular day. In response, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the location of every incident and record it – the project has since expanded to incorporate experiences reported by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “Reportedly pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

Harfleet chose the pansy not just for the obvious reason – it has long been a slur – but also because its name derives from the French verb, penser, to think. “It was linked to a man who is contemplative, and that, of course, is a terrible thing,” he says.

The plan on the event day is to plant pansies at fresh spots and also replant flowers in places he has honored before, all the while talking to those on the walking tour about the events and his recollections. “We’ve seen quite a few following earlier installations,” he says with regret.

Advancing Positively

Harfleet hopes his work – and