🔗 Share this article

Back in 2015, artist and activist Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his last major projects. Recognized for pioneering art that erases itself, Metzger had dedicated his life to responding to global challenges from nuclear disarmament to plant-based living. In a brief video message, he requested support for a worldwide initiative to honor the environment.

“I call upon you for your involvement in this worldwide call for a day of action to remember nature on the fourth of November, 2015,” he announced, encouraging makers and thinkers to stand against the steady eradication of species. “Our responsibility is to help the public recall of the diversity and intricacy in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into domains that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Creation of Remember Nature

And so the environmental art day was born, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain produced pieces to the unfolding climate catastrophe. An organizer, who worked closely with Metzger in his final years, recalls his feeling of immediacy. “He had a profound sense of urgency for him at the close of his days,” she says. “My advice was – we must act now. No need to pause for financial support or for anyone to authorize this. Take action immediately.”

Ten Years On

Ten years later, the initiative may not have triggered the broad uprising across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but Joelson believes its influence can still be seen in initiatives like artist-led declarations and climate activism networks, as well as in how artists approach the environmental impact of their methods. For this purpose she is restaging it to celebrate its decade milestone. Among the key participants involved this time are Cornelia Parker and prominent artists. Each has designed posters, made video appeals, and produced installations set to be unveiled on 4 November 2025.

Sowing Change

When speaking to one participant, she is on site in Kent, assisting with planting apple trees that will create a coiled garden. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is half artwork and somewhat instructive. As she explains, the planning and planting sessions have already involved learning about measurements (spacing the distances between trees), science (discussing the hereditary traits), and geography (tracing the stories of how distinct varieties were introduced to England).

Several the apples were selected because they’ve got funny names such as the Bloody Butcher. We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ crimson liquid

“A lot of the apples were picked because they’ve got humorous titles such as the other unusual varieties,” she explains. “We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ scarlet-colored sap. Every one carries stories behind them. The decio apple was introduced by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that descended from a tree and struck the physicist’s head.”

The artist aimed the children to be more consciously engaged of the environment and the influence we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you buy from a supermarket, so I was prompting them, when they go shopping, to check the packaging and see their names and where they were grown. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Across the Country

At the capital, a participant’s Book of Loss will involve participants looking through an art institution on a journey to find the frozen formations that have been vanished in modern times. Every ice sheet will be depicted on the museum surfaces using invisible ink. Whenever one is found, a chime will sound and a recitation will be conducted to commemorate that specific ice mass.

Meanwhile, up in another location, Maddi Nicholson will be presenting a free exhibition about our alienation from the environment, as well as hosting a shared meal, cooked from organic, local produce. In another city, a participant is streaming her environmental performance, in which regional performers begin a project to sing plants back to health in a local park.

Youth Perspectives

Similar to other artists, Cornelia Parker will be collaborating with schoolchildren – on the scheduled date she is hoping to cover an art space in kids’ letters and drawings that capture their dreams and worries for the tomorrow. “Children’s words and images are compelling because they’re not as inhibited 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 provoke a feeling of duty from us all. Kids are unbiased. They have anxieties about what’s next. But this shouldn’t be about fear – it should be about positivity and our responsibility that they have a tomorrow.”

Memorials and Memory

Another artist’s work also appeals to children. As a former drag queen, his avian project involves drawing birds and then dressing up as them – and for the event he is aiming to represent Liverpool’s famous Liver bird. He is also conducting a itinerant journey of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his Pansy Project over the last two decades. The project began when he experienced three incidents of homophobic abuse on a one occasion. To counter this, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the location of every incident and record it – the project has since expanded to incorporate experiences shared by other people across the world. “The flowers remain there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “It seems birds consume them, so they’re a short-lived memorial.”

The artist selected 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. “People connected it with a man who is contemplative, and that, of course, is a terrible thing,” he says.

The project on 4 November is to sow flowers at new locations and also replant flowers in places he has marked earlier, all the while conversing with those on the itinerant journey about the incidents and his personal experiences. “There’s been quite a few since I last planted,” he says with regret.

Moving Forward with Hope

He desires his work – and