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In 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his final major projects. Famed for pioneering self-destructive creations, Metzger had dedicated his life to confronting human struggles from anti-nuclear advocacy to ethical eating. In a brief video message, he requested support for a worldwide initiative to remember nature.

“This is my appeal for your participation in this international summons for a day of action to remember nature on November 4th, 2015,” he stated, inviting artists and creatives to oppose the ongoing loss of flora and fauna. “Our responsibility is to help the public recall of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so art will enter domains that are naturally imaginative.”

The Inception of Environmental Reflection

And so the environmental art day was born, a day when artists across the country produced pieces to the ongoing environmental crisis. Jo Joelson, who supported Metzger in his later life, notes his feeling of immediacy. “He had a profound 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 green light this. Take action immediately.”

Ten Years On

A decade on, the initiative may not have sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but Joelson believes its influence can still be seen in initiatives like Culture Declares and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how makers handle the eco-friendliness of their work. This is the reason she is restaging it to celebrate its 10-year anniversary. Included in the featured creators participating now are Cornelia Parker and prominent artists. Each has produced imagery, shared messages, and created artworks set to be unveiled on November 4, 2025.

Planting Hope

Interviewing the artist, she is out in a field in the countryside, cultivating apple trees that will create a coiled garden. Working with schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and somewhat instructive. According to her, the preparation and sowing sessions have already involved learning about measurements (calculating the gaps in the orchard), genetics (discussing the apple’s DNA), and origins (researching the backgrounds of how various cultivars 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 produces scarcolored sap

“Many of the apples were chosen because they’ve got funny names such as the Duck’s Bill,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ red juice. They all have background narratives. The decio apple was imported by the Romans. The local breed is the apple that descended from a tree and struck the physicist’s head.”

Gallaccio wanted the children to be more thoughtfully connected of nature and the influence we have over it. “To many 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. Hopefully it says Kent!”

Artistic Responses Across the Country

At the capital, one artist’s Book of Loss will include attendees searching Tate Modern on a mission to find the seven major glaciers that have been lost in recent years. All formations will be drawn on the museum surfaces using special pens. When located, a bell will ring and a performance will be held to honor that individual formation.

Elsewhere, up in another location, an artist will be putting on a free exhibition about our separation from nature, as well as hosting a community dinner, made using sustainable ingredients. In another city, a participant is streaming her environmental performance, in which local singers embark on a mission to perform for vegetation in a green space.

Youth Perspectives

Similar to other artists, another participant will be collaborating with schoolchildren – on the scheduled date she is hoping to decorate a cultural venue in youth creations that document their hopes and fears for the years ahead. “Kids’ art are compelling because they’re not as restricted as mature perspectives,” she says in her public appeal. “Young people’s input to the world is something truly special and hopefully it will stimulate a feeling of duty from us all. Kids are unbiased. They have fears about the future. But let’s not make it about anxiety – it should be about hope and our responsibility that they have a tomorrow.”

Tributes and Thoughts

Another artist’s work also appeals to children. Drawing on past experience, his feathered initiative involves illustrating avians and then embodying them – and for the event he is planning to represent Liverpool’s famous Liver bird. He is also organizing a walking tour of the city, stopping at places that have been part of his ongoing series over the last two decades. This endeavor commenced following he endured multiple occurrences of discrimination on a single day. To counter this, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the spot where it happened and record it – the project has since expanded to include incidents reported by other people across the world. “I place the plants there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “It seems birds consume them, so they’re a short-lived memorial.”

The artist selected the pansy not just for the direct association – it has long been a term of homophobic abuse – but also because its origin is the French verb, penser, to think. “It became associated with a man who is contemplative, and that, of course, is a terrible thing,” he says.

The project on Remember Nature day is to plant pansies at fresh spots and also refresh the memorials in places he has marked earlier, all the while talking to those on the itinerant journey about the events and his memories of them. “I’ve recorded quite a few since I last planted,” he says sadly.

Progressing Optimistically

Harfleet hopes his work – and