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In 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger launched one of his last important works. Famed for creating art that erases itself, Metzger had devoted his career to addressing global challenges from nuclear disarmament to plant-based living. Via a concise video message, he requested support for a worldwide initiative to honor the environment.

“This is my appeal for your engagement in this international summons for a day of action to commemorate our planet on the fourth of November, 2015,” he declared, inviting cultural workers to resist the ongoing loss of flora and fauna. “The mission is to make audiences aware of the diversity and intricacy in nature … and by doing so art will enter territories that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Birth of Nature Remembrance

Thus Remember Nature was born, a day when artists across the country created responses to the unfolding climate catastrophe. An organizer, who cared for Metzger in his final years, remembers his sense of urgency. “There was a strong sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “My advice was – don’t delay. We shouldn’t hold back for financial support or for anyone to authorize this. We should proceed.”

After Ten Years

Ten years later, the initiative did not incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had envisioned, but supporters think its legacy can still be seen in movements like artist-led declarations and environmental protests, as well as in how artists approach the environmental impact of their work. This is the reason she is restaging it to mark its ten-year mark. Included in the featured creators involved this time are Cornelia Parker and Anya Gallaccio. All participants have produced imagery, made video appeals, and developed pieces set to be presented on the fourth of November next year.

Planting Hope

When speaking to the artist, she is out in a field in a rural area, cultivating apple trees that will create a spiral-shaped orchard. Working with schoolchildren, her project is half artwork and part learning experience. She describes, the design and cultivation sessions have already included learning about measurements (calculating the distances between trees), biology (studying the apple’s DNA), and origins (researching the journeys of how various cultivars arrived in Britain).

Many of the apples were chosen because they’ve got funny names such as the other unusual varieties. We have one apple that produces crimson liquid

“A lot of the apples were picked because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Bloody Butcher,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that releases scarlet-colored sap. They all have histories attached. The historical cultivar was imported by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that fell from a tree and struck the physicist’s head.”

Gallaccio wanted the children to be more actively aware of the environment and the influence we have over it. “To many of them, apples were just things you buy from a supermarket, so I was prompting them, on their next shopping trip, to check the packaging and see the variety and where they were grown. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Cultural Projects Throughout Britain

Within the city, one artist’s work about extinction will include attendees looking through an art institution on a mission to find the frozen formations that have been vanished in recent years. All formations will be illustrated on the exhibition spaces using invisible ink. Each discovery, a chime will sound and a reading will be performed to honor that specific ice mass.

At the same time, up in another location, an artist will be presenting a free exhibition about our separation from nature, as well as organizing a communal feast, made using regional food. In another city, a participant is broadcasting her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which regional performers embark on a mission to use music to heal flora in a local park.

Children’s Voices

Similar to other artists, another participant will be engaging schoolchildren – on the actual event she is planning to cover a cultural venue in children’s artwork that document their aspirations and concerns for the years ahead. “Kids’ art are compelling 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 distinctive and hopefully it will provoke a sense of responsibility from each person. Youth is pure. They have anxieties about what’s next. But it isn’t meant to be about worry – it should be about optimism and making sure that they get a future.”

Tributes and Thoughts

A participant’s work also resonates for children. As a former drag queen, his avian project involves drawing birds and then embodying them – and for Remember Nature day he is planning to address a local symbol. He is also conducting a itinerant journey of the city, stopping at places that have been part of his ongoing series over the recent decades. That ongoing series began when he experienced three incidents of prejudice on a single day. In response, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the spot where it happened and record it – the project has since expanded to incorporate experiences shared by other people across the world. “The flowers remain there but they fade quickly,” says Harfleet. “Reportedly wildlife enjoys them, so they’re a short-lived memorial.”

He picked the bloom not just for the clear connection – it has long been a derogatory label – but also because its origin is 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 plan on the event day is to sow flowers at fresh spots and also replant flowers in places he has previously memorialised, all the while conversing with those on the itinerant journey about the events and his personal experiences. “There’s been quite a few after my previous work,” he says sadly.

Moving Forward with Hope

The artist wishes his work – and