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During 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his final major projects. Known for introducing self-destructive creations, Metzger had devoted his career to addressing human struggles from nuclear disarmament to vegetarianism. Through a short video message, he issued a call for a worldwide initiative to celebrate the natural world.

“This is my appeal for your involvement in this worldwide call for a day of action to reflect on the environment on 4 November 2015,” he announced, encouraging artists and creatives to oppose the steady eradication of living beings. “Our task is to make audiences aware of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into territories that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Birth of Environmental Reflection

Thus Remember Nature came into being, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain created responses to the ongoing environmental crisis. An organizer, who worked closely with Metzger in his later life, notes his sense of urgency. “I sensed a great sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “My advice was – we must act now. We shouldn’t hold back for financial support or for anyone to authorize this. We should proceed.”

Ten Years On

Ten years later, Remember Nature did not triggered the broad uprising across the arts that Metzger had envisioned, but organizers feel its impact can still be seen in initiatives like artist-led declarations and climate activism networks, as well as in how makers handle the environmental impact of their methods. This is the reason she is restaging it to commemorate its 10-year anniversary. Part of the featured creators involved this time are Cornelia Parker and prominent artists. Each has created visual art, made video appeals, and developed pieces set to be unveiled on the fourth of November next year.

Cultivating Awareness

In conversation with one participant, she is working outdoors in Kent, cultivating apple trees that will grow to form a spiral-shaped orchard. Working with schoolchildren, her project is part creative piece and somewhat instructive. As she explains, the planning and planting sessions have already involved learning about measurements (measuring out the distances between trees), biology (studying the apple’s DNA), and history (tracing the journeys of how distinct varieties were introduced to England).

Several the apples were selected because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Duck’s Bill. We have one apple that releases red juice

“Several the apples were selected because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Bloody Butcher,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ scarlet-colored sap. They all have histories attached. The decio apple was imported by the Romans. The local breed is the apple that fell from a tree and struck the physicist’s head.”

Gallaccio wanted the children to be more thoughtfully connected of the environment and the control we have over it. “To many of them, 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 their origin. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Across the Country

At the capital, one artist’s Book of Loss will involve participants exploring an art institution on a journey to find the ice masses that have been lost in the past decade. Every ice sheet will be drawn on the exhibition spaces using invisible ink. Each discovery, a bell will ring and a reading will be performed to commemorate that individual formation.

At the same time, up in another location, Maddi Nicholson will be presenting a public show about our separation from nature, as well as hosting a shared meal, prepared with sustainable ingredients. Over in Newcastle, a participant is broadcasting her environmental performance, in which regional performers embark on a mission to sing plants back to health in a green space.

Children’s Voices

Similar to other artists, a featured creator will be collaborating with schoolchildren – on the actual event she is hoping to fill an art space in children’s artwork that express their aspirations and concerns for the tomorrow. “Children’s words and images are powerful because they’re not as trammelled as mature perspectives,” she says in her recorded message. “What children have to offer to the world is something quite unique and it may inspire a awareness of obligation from us all. Children are innocent. They have concerns for tomorrow. But let’s not make it about worry – it should be about positivity and us ensuring that they have a tomorrow.”

Tributes and Thoughts

A participant’s work also connects with children. With a background in performance, his Birds Can Fly involves illustrating avians and then dressing up as them – and for Remember Nature day he is intending to represent Liverpool’s famous Liver bird. He is also staging a itinerant journey of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his ongoing series over the past twenty years. That ongoing series began when he faced three incidents of prejudice on a one occasion. To counter this, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the site of each occurrence and document it – the project has since spiralled to cover events shared by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “Reportedly pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

He picked the pansy 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. “People connected it with a man who is reflective, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The intention on 4 November is to place blooms at fresh spots and also replant flowers in places he has previously memorialised, all the while talking to those on the guided walk about the occurrences and his recollections. “There’s been quite a few since I last planted,” he says with regret.

Moving Forward with Hope

The artist wishes his work – and