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Back in 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger initiated one of his ultimate significant endeavors. Recognized for creating self-destructive creations, Metzger had devoted his career to addressing societal issues from anti-nuclear advocacy to ethical eating. Via a concise video message, he made a plea for a international event to celebrate the natural world.

“This is my appeal for your participation in this international summons for a day of action to remember nature on 4 November 2015,” he stated, urging cultural workers to oppose the ongoing loss of living beings. “The mission is to help the public recall of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so art will enter realms that are naturally imaginative.”

The Inception of Environmental Reflection

In this way Remember Nature came into being, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain produced pieces to the ongoing environmental crisis. Jo Joelson, who worked closely with Metzger in his final years, notes his feeling of immediacy. “I sensed a strong sense of urgency for him at the close of his days,” she says. “I urged him – don’t delay. We shouldn’t hold back for sponsorship or for anyone to approve this. We should proceed.”

After Ten Years

Ten years later, Remember Nature hasn’t quite sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had envisioned, but organizers feel its legacy can still be seen in movements like artist-led declarations and environmental protests, as well as in how creatives consider the sustainability of their practices. This is the reason she is restaging it to mark its decade milestone. Included in the featured creators participating now are A Man Called Adam and other notable figures. Each has created visual art, made video appeals, and developed pieces set to be revealed on November 4, 2025.

Planting Hope

In conversation with Anya Gallaccio, she is out in a field in a rural area, assisting with planting apple trees that will develop into a spiral-shaped orchard. Working with schoolchildren, her project is half artwork and part learning experience. She describes, the planning and planting sessions have already incorporated learning about mathematics (calculating the gaps in the orchard), biology (exploring the genetic makeup), and history (researching the stories of how distinct varieties came to the UK).

Many of the apples were selected because they’ve got amusing labels such as the other unusual varieties. We have one apple that releases scarcolored sap

“A lot of the apples were picked because they’ve got amusing labels such as the other unusual varieties,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that produces red juice. Every one carries background narratives. The ancient variety was brought over by the Romans. The local breed is the apple that dropped off a tree and landed on the scientist’s head.”

The artist aimed 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 buy from a supermarket, so I was encouraging them, when they go shopping, to look on the bag and see their names and where they were grown. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Artistic Responses Across the Country

In London, one artist’s work about extinction will include attendees searching Tate Modern on a quest to find the frozen formations that have been disappeared in the past decade. All formations will be illustrated on the museum surfaces using special pens. Each discovery, a bell will ring and a recitation will be held to commemorate that specific ice mass.

At the same time, up in another location, a creative will be presenting a public show about our disconnection from the land, as well as organizing a communal feast, prepared with regional food. Further north, an artist is broadcasting her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which regional performers begin a project to use music to heal flora in a green space.

Children’s Voices

Following this approach, a featured creator will be working with schoolchildren – on the scheduled date she is planning to fill a cultural venue in children’s artwork that capture their hopes and fears for the future. “Children’s words and images are impactful because they’re not as trammelled as mature perspectives,” she says in her call to action video. “What children have to offer to the world is something truly special and perhaps it can provoke a feeling of duty from each person. Youth is pure. They have fears about the future. But let’s not make it about anxiety – it should be about hope and making sure that they get a future.”

Tributes and Thoughts

Another artist’s work also resonates for children. Drawing on past experience, his avian project involves drawing birds and then performing as birds – and for the event he is intending to address Liverpool’s famous Liver bird. He is also conducting a itinerant journey of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his long-term work over the recent decades. The project began when he experienced multiple occurrences of discrimination on a one occasion. To counter this, Harfleet decided to plant a pansy at the spot where it happened and record it – the project has since spiralled to incorporate experiences reported 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 very temporary memorial.”

The artist selected the flower not just for the clear connection – it has long been a derogatory label – 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 intention on the event day is to sow flowers at additional sites and also replant flowers in places he has honored before, all the while conversing with those on the itinerant journey about the events and his personal experiences. “There’s been quite a few since I last planted,” he says mournfully.

Advancing Positively

He desires his work – and