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Back in 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger initiated one of his ultimate important works. Recognized for introducing auto-destructive art, Metzger had dedicated his life to confronting societal issues from peace activism to ethical eating. In a brief video message, he issued a call for a international event to honor the environment.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your involvement in this international summons for a day of action to commemorate our planet on the fourth of November, 2015,” he declared, encouraging makers and thinkers to stand against the ongoing loss of flora and fauna. “Our task is to help the public recall of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore domains that are inherently creative.”

The Creation of Remember Nature

In this way the Nature Remembrance initiative came into being, a day when artists across the country developed works to the unfolding climate catastrophe. Jo Joelson, who supported Metzger in his later life, notes his feeling of immediacy. “I sensed a great sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “I urged him – don’t delay. No need to pause for sponsorship or for anyone to authorize this. Take action immediately.”

Ten Years On

After ten years, 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 felt in movements like cultural advocacy groups and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how creatives consider the sustainability of their work. This is the reason she is reviving it to commemorate its decade milestone. Included in the featured creators involved this time are Cornelia Parker and other notable figures. They have all produced imagery, recorded calls to action, and produced installations set to be unveiled on November 4, 2025.

Cultivating Awareness

When speaking to one participant, she is out in a field in the countryside, cultivating apple trees that will grow to form a circular grove. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is half artwork and somewhat instructive. As she explains, the design and cultivation sessions have already involved learning about mathematics (calculating the planting intervals), genetics (exploring the genetic makeup), and history (tracing the backgrounds of how different apples arrived in Britain).

Several the apples were picked because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Duck’s Bill. We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ crimson liquid

“Many of the apples were chosen because they’ve got funny names such as the Bloody Butcher,” she explains. “We have one apple that releases scarlet-colored sap. Each has background narratives. The decio apple was introduced by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that dropped off a tree and hit the physicist’s head.”

The artist aimed the children to be more thoughtfully connected of the natural world and the control we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was encouraging them, next time they were out, to read the label and see what they’re called and their origin. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Throughout Britain

In London, Youngsook Choi’s Book of Loss will involve participants looking through an art institution on a quest to find the seven major glaciers that have been vanished in modern times. Each glacier will be drawn on the gallery’s windows and walls using special pens. Each discovery, a bell will ring and a reading will be held to commemorate that individual formation.

Elsewhere, up in a northern town, an artist will be presenting a public show about our separation from nature, as well as holding a communal feast, made using sustainable ingredients. In another city, an artist is streaming her musical project, in which local singers embark on a mission to sing plants back to health in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Youth Perspectives

Following this approach, Cornelia Parker will be collaborating with schoolchildren – on the day itself she is aiming to decorate Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in kids’ letters and drawings that express their aspirations and concerns for the tomorrow. “Youthful expressions are impactful 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 inspire a feeling of duty from everyone. Youth is pure. They have anxieties about what’s next. But it isn’t meant to be about anxiety – it should be about positivity and our responsibility that they get a future.”

Remembrance and Reflection

Paul Harfleet’s work also resonates for children. As a former drag queen, his Birds Can Fly involves drawing birds and then dressing up as them – and for Remember Nature day he is planning to represent a local symbol. He is also staging a walking tour of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his ongoing series over the last two decades. That ongoing series started after he faced several events of discrimination on a single day. To counter this, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the site of each occurrence and record it – the project has since expanded to include incidents reported by other people across the world. “The flowers remain there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “Apparently birds consume them, so they’re a short-lived memorial.”

He picked the flower not just for the direct association – it has long been a slur – 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 negative trait,” he says.

The plan on the event day is to sow flowers at fresh spots and also renew the tributes in places he has honored before, all the while talking to those on the guided walk about the events and his memories of them. “We’ve seen quite a few following earlier installations,” he says with regret.

Advancing Positively

He desires his work – and