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During 2015, artist and activist Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his last important works. Known for pioneering art that erases itself, Metzger had dedicated his life to confronting global challenges from nuclear disarmament to plant-based living. Via a concise video message, he requested support for a global day of action to celebrate the natural world.

“I call upon you for your participation in this global appeal for a day of action to reflect on the environment on November 4th, 2015,” he stated, inviting makers and thinkers to resist the continuing disappearance of species. “The mission is to make audiences aware of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so art will enter realms that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Inception of Environmental Reflection

And so the environmental art day came into being, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain developed works to the unfolding climate catastrophe. An organizer, who cared for Metzger in his later life, notes his feeling of immediacy. “I sensed a great sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “I just said – let’s not mess around. We shouldn’t hold back for financial support or for anyone to authorize this. Take action immediately.”

After Ten Years

After ten years, Remember Nature may not have sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but supporters think its influence can still be seen in initiatives like artist-led declarations and environmental protests, as well as in how artists approach the environmental impact of their methods. This is the reason she is restaging it to mark its ten-year mark. Part of the featured creators participating now are A Man Called Adam and prominent artists. They have all designed posters, shared messages, and developed pieces set to be revealed on the fourth of November next year.

Planting Hope

In conversation with one participant, she is working outdoors in a rural area, helping plant apple trees that will grow to form a spiral-shaped orchard. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and half educational workshop. She describes, the design and cultivation sessions have already incorporated learning about mathematics (measuring out the distances between trees), biology (discussing the apple’s DNA), and origins (mapping the journeys of how various cultivars came to the UK).

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

“Several the apples were selected because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Bloody Butcher,” she explains. “We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ crimson liquid. Every one carries background narratives. The decio apple was introduced by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that dropped off a tree and hit the scientist’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more thoughtfully connected of the environment and the power we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was prompting them, next time they were out, to read the label and see their names and where they were grown. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Across the Country

Within the city, a participant’s Book of Loss will include attendees looking through Tate Modern on a quest to find the seven major glaciers that have been vanished in recent years. Each glacier will be depicted on the museum surfaces using ultraviolet markers. Each discovery, a chime will sound and a performance will be held to remember that individual formation.

At the same time, up in a northern town, Maddi Nicholson will be hosting a open display about our separation from nature, as well as hosting a communal feast, prepared with regional food. Further north, Uta Kögelsberger is sharing her environmental performance, in which community vocalists embark on a mission to use music to heal flora in a green space.

Youth Perspectives

Similar to other artists, another participant will be engaging schoolchildren – on the scheduled date she is planning to fill a cultural venue in youth creations that express their hopes and fears for the tomorrow. “Kids’ art are powerful because they’re not as inhibited as adults’,” she says in her public appeal. “What children have to offer to the world is something truly special and hopefully it will inspire a feeling of duty from everyone. Kids are unbiased. They have anxieties about what’s next. But let’s not make it about anxiety – it should be about positivity and us ensuring that they get a future.”

Tributes and Thoughts

Paul Harfleet’s work also resonates for children. Drawing on past experience, his avian project involves sketching winged creatures and then embodying them – and for the initiative he is intending to address an iconic figure. He is also staging a itinerant journey of the city, stopping at places that have been part of his ongoing series over the recent decades. The project began when he faced multiple occurrences of prejudice on a single day. As a reaction, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the spot where it happened and document it – the project has since grown to incorporate experiences shared by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “It seems wildlife enjoys them, so they’re a short-lived memorial.”

Harfleet chose the flower not just for the direct association – it has long been a term of homophobic abuse – but also because its name derives from the French verb, penser, to think. “People connected it with a man who is contemplative, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The project on Remember Nature day is to place blooms at new locations and also renew the tributes in places he has honored before, all the while conversing with those on the itinerant journey about the events and his personal experiences. “I’ve recorded quite a few since I last planted,” he says sadly.

Advancing Positively

The artist wishes his work – and