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Back in 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his final significant endeavors. Known for creating auto-destructive art, Metzger had spent a lifetime to addressing human struggles from anti-nuclear advocacy to ethical eating. In a brief video message, he issued a call for a global day of action to celebrate the natural world.

“This is my appeal for your involvement in this global appeal for a day of action to reflect on the environment on the fourth of November, 2015,” he announced, encouraging artists and creatives to stand against the steady eradication of living beings. “Our responsibility is to help the public recall of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into territories that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Creation of Remember Nature

And so the Nature Remembrance initiative came into being, a day when artists across the country developed works to the unfolding climate catastrophe. One of the curators, who cared for Metzger in his last days, remembers his feeling of immediacy. “He had a strong sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “I urged him – don’t delay. We shouldn’t hold back for sponsorship or for anyone to approve this. We should proceed.”

After Ten Years

After ten years, the initiative hasn’t quite incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had envisioned, but supporters think its influence can still be seen in initiatives like cultural advocacy groups and climate activism networks, as well as in how creatives consider the eco-friendliness of their practices. That’s why she is reviving it to celebrate its decade milestone. Included in the key participants taking part currently are A Man Called Adam and Anya Gallaccio. All participants have produced imagery, shared messages, and created artworks set to be unveiled on 4 November 2025.

Cultivating Awareness

Interviewing the artist, she is on site in the countryside, assisting with planting apple trees that will grow to form a coiled garden. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is half artwork and somewhat instructive. She describes, the planning and planting sessions have already incorporated learning about measurements (calculating the planting intervals), science (studying the genetic makeup), and history (mapping the journeys of how distinct varieties came to the UK).

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

“Several the apples were selected because they’ve got humorous titles such as the other unusual varieties,” she explains. “We have one apple that releases crimson liquid. Each has stories behind them. The decio apple was introduced by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that dropped off a tree and landed on the scientist’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more actively aware 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 prompting them, on their next shopping trip, to look on the bag and see their names and their origin. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Artistic Responses Nationwide

Within the city, Youngsook Choi’s work about extinction will engage visitors looking through an art institution on a journey to find the seven major glaciers that have been lost in the past decade. Each glacier will be depicted on the museum surfaces using ultraviolet markers. Whenever one is found, a chime will sound and a recitation will be conducted to honor that particular glacier.

Meanwhile, up in Barrow-in-Furness, an artist will be presenting a open display about our disconnection from the land, as well as organizing a community dinner, prepared with regional food. Further north, an artist is sharing her musical project, in which regional performers undertake a task to sing plants back to health in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Children’s Voices

Like Gallaccio, a featured creator will be working with schoolchildren – on the scheduled date she is hoping to decorate an art space in youth creations that capture their hopes and fears for the years ahead. “Children’s words and images are impactful because they’re not as inhibited as mature perspectives,” she says in her call to action video. “Young people’s input to the world is something truly special and it may inspire a awareness of obligation from each person. Kids are unbiased. They have anxieties about what’s next. But this shouldn’t be about worry – it should be about positivity and our responsibility that they see a better world.”

Memorials and Memory

Another artist’s work also appeals to children. Drawing on past experience, his avian project involves illustrating avians and then dressing up as them – and for Remember Nature day he is aiming to represent a local symbol. He is also organizing a itinerant journey of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his long-term work over the recent decades. The project started after he experienced three incidents of homophobic abuse on a particular day. In response, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the spot where it happened and document it – the project has since expanded to incorporate experiences shared by other people across the world. “The flowers remain there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “It seems pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a very temporary memorial.”

Harfleet chose the pansy not just for the clear connection – it has long been a derogatory label – but also because its name derives from 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 Remember Nature day is to sow flowers at fresh spots and also refresh the memorials in places he has honored before, all the while talking to those on the guided walk about the incidents and his memories of them. “I’ve recorded quite a few following earlier installations,” he says with regret.

Moving Forward with Hope

He desires his work – and