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During 2015, artist and activist Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his last important works. Famed for introducing art that erases itself, Metzger had dedicated his life to addressing human struggles from anti-nuclear advocacy to plant-based living. In a brief video message, he requested support for a international event to honor the environment.

“This is my appeal for your participation in this international summons for a day of action to reflect on the environment on the fourth of November, 2015,” he declared, inviting cultural workers to oppose the steady eradication of species. “Our responsibility is to make audiences aware of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so art will enter territories that are inherently creative.”

The Creation of Environmental Reflection

Thus the Nature Remembrance initiative was established, a day when creatives nationwide developed works to the unfolding climate catastrophe. Jo Joelson, who cared for Metzger in his later life, remembers his feeling of immediacy. “He had a strong sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “My advice was – let’s not mess around. Let’s not wait for sponsorship or for anyone to approve this. We should proceed.”

A Decade Later

Ten years later, the project did not sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but supporters think its impact can still be felt in initiatives like Culture Declares and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how artists approach the eco-friendliness of their methods. That’s why she is reviving it to celebrate its ten-year mark. Included in the featured creators taking part currently are Cornelia Parker and prominent artists. All participants have created visual art, shared messages, and created artworks set to be revealed on November 4, 2025.

Sowing Change

Interviewing the artist, she is working outdoors in Kent, helping plant apple trees that will develop into a circular grove. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and half educational workshop. As she explains, the design and cultivation sessions have already incorporated learning about mathematics (spacing the distances between trees), science (studying the apple’s DNA), and geography (mapping the stories of how different apples arrived in Britain).

A lot of the apples were selected because they’ve got funny names such as the other unusual varieties. We have one apple that produces red juice

“Several the apples were chosen because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Bloody Butcher,” says Gallaccio. “We have one apple that releases crimson liquid. Every one carries stories behind them. The historical cultivar was imported by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that descended from a tree and landed on the physicist’s head.”

The artist aimed the children to be more consciously engaged of nature and the influence we have over it. “To many of them, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was urging them, next time they were out, to read the label and see their names and the source. Hopefully it says Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Nationwide

Within the city, a participant’s project on disappearance will engage visitors exploring an art institution on a journey to find the seven major glaciers that have been vanished in recent years. Each glacier will be depicted on the exhibition spaces using special pens. Each discovery, a bell will ring and a performance will be conducted to commemorate that specific ice mass.

At the same time, up in a northern town, a creative will be putting on a public show about our disconnection from the land, as well as hosting a community dinner, made using sustainable ingredients. Further north, an artist is broadcasting her environmental performance, in which regional performers undertake a task to perform for vegetation in a local park.

Youth Perspectives

Like Gallaccio, Cornelia Parker will be working with schoolchildren – on the actual event she is planning to fill an art space in youth creations that document their dreams and worries for the years ahead. “Kids’ art are impactful because they’re not as trammelled as grown-ups’,” she says in her public appeal. “What children have to offer to the world is something quite unique and hopefully it will provoke a feeling of duty from us all. Kids are unbiased. They have anxieties about what’s next. But this shouldn’t be about fear – it should be about positivity and us ensuring that they see a better world.”

Memorials and Memory

Another artist’s work also resonates for children. Drawing on past experience, his Birds Can Fly involves sketching winged creatures and then dressing up as them – and for the initiative he is aiming to represent a local symbol. He is also conducting a walking tour of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his Pansy Project over the recent decades. That ongoing series began when he experienced several events of discrimination on a particular day. In response, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the site of each occurrence and photograph it – the project has since grown to include incidents experienced by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they fade quickly,” says Harfleet. “Reportedly birds consume them, so they’re a short-lived memorial.”

He picked the bloom not just for the direct association – it has long been a slur – but also because its etymology comes from the French verb, penser, to think. “It became associated with a man who is thoughtful, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The intention on the event day is to place blooms at new locations and also replant flowers in places he has previously memorialised, all the while discussing with those on the walking tour about the occurrences and his personal experiences. “I’ve recorded quite a few since I last planted,” he says sadly.

Moving Forward with Hope

The artist wishes his work – and