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Back in 2015, artist and activist Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his ultimate significant endeavors. Recognized for pioneering auto-destructive art, Metzger had spent a lifetime to addressing societal issues from peace activism to plant-based living. In a brief video message, he requested support for a international event to remember nature.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your engagement in this international summons for a day of action to remember nature on the fourth of November, 2015,” he announced, inviting makers and thinkers to resist the continuing disappearance of flora and fauna. “Our task is to make audiences aware of the diversity and intricacy in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore realms that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Inception of Environmental Reflection

Thus Remember Nature was established, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain produced pieces to the escalating planetary emergency. One of the curators, who supported Metzger in his last days, recalls his drive for action. “I sensed a profound sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “I just said – don’t delay. We shouldn’t hold back for financial support or for anyone to green light this. Take action immediately.”

After Ten Years

Ten years later, the project hasn’t quite incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but supporters think its impact can still be seen in movements like Culture Declares and climate activism networks, as well as in how artists approach the eco-friendliness of their work. That’s why she is restaging it to commemorate its decade milestone. Part of the 18 lead artists taking part currently are A Man Called Adam and prominent artists. They have all created visual art, shared messages, and produced installations set to be revealed on the fourth of November next year.

Planting Hope

When speaking to the artist, she is on site in a rural area, assisting with planting apple trees that will create a coiled garden. Working with schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and part learning experience. As she explains, the preparation and sowing sessions have already involved learning about maths (spacing the distances between trees), genetics (discussing the genetic makeup), and origins (tracing the stories of how various cultivars were introduced to England).

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

“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 releases scarlet-colored sap. Each has stories behind them. The ancient variety was introduced 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 actively aware of nature and the power we have over it. “To many of them, apples were just things you get at a supermarket, so I was prompting them, on their next shopping trip, to check the packaging and see the variety and their origin. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Artistic Responses Across the Country

Within the city, Youngsook Choi’s work about extinction will involve participants looking through an art institution on a journey to find the ice masses that have been vanished in the past decade. All formations will be illustrated on the museum surfaces using special pens. When located, a chime will sound and a reading will be conducted to commemorate that particular glacier.

Meanwhile, up in another location, an artist will be hosting a free exhibition about our disconnection from the land, as well as holding a communal feast, made using sustainable ingredients. Further north, an artist is sharing her musical project, in which local singers begin a project to sing plants back to health in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Young Insights

Similar to other artists, a featured creator will be collaborating with schoolchildren – on the scheduled date she is aiming to cover a cultural venue in children’s artwork that express their aspirations and concerns for the tomorrow. “Kids’ art are compelling 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 quite unique and perhaps it can provoke a sense of responsibility from us all. Children are innocent. They have anxieties about what’s next. But it isn’t meant to be about worry – it should be about positivity and our responsibility that they get a future.”

Memorials and Memory

Paul Harfleet’s work also resonates for children. As a former drag queen, his feathered initiative involves illustrating avians and then performing as birds – and for the event he is aiming to represent a local symbol. He is also conducting a guided walk of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his ongoing series over the last two decades. That ongoing series began when he experienced three incidents of discrimination on a one occasion. To counter this, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the spot where it happened and record it – the project has since spiralled to cover events 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 ephemeral memorial.”

The artist selected the bloom not just for the obvious reason – it has long been a term of homophobic abuse – but also because its origin is 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 project on the event day is to place blooms at additional sites and also renew the tributes in places he has marked earlier, all the while discussing with those on the guided walk about the occurrences and his memories of them. “There’s been quite a few since I last planted,” he says mournfully.

Progressing Optimistically

He desires his work – and