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Back in 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger launched one of his final important works. Recognized for introducing auto-destructive art, Metzger had spent a lifetime to responding to human struggles from nuclear disarmament to ethical eating. Via a concise video message, he made a plea for a worldwide initiative to remember nature.

“I call upon you for your engagement in this global appeal for a day of action to commemorate our planet on November 4th, 2015,” he announced, urging cultural workers to resist the continuing disappearance of living beings. “Our task is to make audiences aware of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore realms that are inherently creative.”

The Creation of Nature Remembrance

Thus Remember Nature was established, a day when creatives nationwide created responses to the unfolding climate catastrophe. An organizer, who supported Metzger in his final years, recalls his sense of urgency. “He had a strong sense of urgency for him at the close of his days,” she says. “I urged him – don’t delay. Let’s not wait for sponsorship or for anyone to approve this. We should proceed.”

Ten Years On

A decade on, Remember Nature may not have incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had dreamed of, but Joelson believes its legacy can still be felt in movements like cultural advocacy groups and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how creatives consider the eco-friendliness of their methods. That’s why she is reviving it to mark its decade milestone. Part of the featured creators participating now are A Man Called Adam and prominent artists. They have all designed posters, recorded calls to action, and created artworks set to be revealed on the fourth of November next year.

Cultivating Awareness

In conversation with one participant, she is working outdoors in a rural area, assisting with planting apple trees that will grow to form a circular grove. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is part creative piece and part learning experience. As she explains, the preparation and sowing sessions have already included learning about measurements (spacing the distances between trees), science (studying the genetic makeup), and origins (tracing the journeys of how different apples were introduced to England).

A lot of the apples were selected because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Bloody Butcher. We have one apple that produces crimson liquid

“A lot of the apples were selected because they’ve got funny names such as the Bloody Butcher,” says Gallaccio. “We have one apple that releases scarlet-colored sap. Every one carries stories behind them. The historical cultivar was introduced by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that descended from a tree and struck the scientist’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more thoughtfully connected of the natural world and the control we have over it. “To many of them, apples were just things you buy from a supermarket, so I was prompting them, when they go shopping, to check the packaging and see the variety and the source. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Throughout Britain

In London, a participant’s work about extinction will include attendees searching an art institution on a mission to find the ice masses that have been vanished in modern times. Every ice sheet will be drawn on the gallery’s windows and walls using ultraviolet markers. Whenever one is found, a alert will occur and a performance will be held to commemorate that individual formation.

At the same time, up in a northern town, a creative will be hosting a free exhibition about our disconnection from the land, as well as holding a communal feast, cooked from regional food. Further north, Uta Kögelsberger is broadcasting her environmental performance, in which local singers undertake a task to sing plants back to health in a green space.

Young Insights

Similar to other artists, another participant will be collaborating with schoolchildren – on the day itself she is planning to cover an art space in kids’ letters and drawings that capture their aspirations and concerns for the future. “Kids’ art are impactful 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 it may inspire a feeling of duty from each person. Kids are unbiased. They have anxieties about what’s next. 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

A participant’s work also appeals to children. Drawing on past experience, his avian project involves illustrating avians and then performing as birds – and for Remember Nature day he is intending to address a local symbol. He is also staging a walking tour of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his long-term work over the past twenty years. The project began when he experienced three incidents of homophobic abuse on a particular day. As a reaction, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the site of each occurrence and record it – the project has since spiralled to cover events shared by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they fade quickly,” says Harfleet. “Apparently pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a very temporary memorial.”

He picked the flower not just for the clear connection – 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 thoughtful, and that, of course, is a terrible thing,” he says.

The plan on 4 November is to place blooms at additional sites and also refresh the memorials in places he has marked earlier, all the while discussing with those on the itinerant journey about the occurrences and his recollections. “We’ve seen quite a few since I last planted,” he says with regret.

Progressing Optimistically

The artist wishes his work – and