🔗 Share this article

Back in 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger initiated one of his last important works. Known for introducing art that erases itself, Metzger had devoted his career to addressing human struggles from peace activism to ethical eating. Through a short video message, he made a plea for a global day of action to honor the environment.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your involvement in this international summons for a day of action to remember nature on November 4th, 2015,” he declared, urging makers and thinkers to stand against the continuing disappearance of living beings. “Our task is to make audiences aware of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into territories that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Birth of Environmental Reflection

In this way the environmental art day was established, a day when artists across the country created responses to the escalating planetary emergency. An organizer, who cared for Metzger in his final years, remembers his feeling of immediacy. “I sensed a profound sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “My advice was – we must act now. No need to pause for funding or for anyone to authorize this. Let’s just do it.”

Ten Years On

Ten years later, Remember Nature did not triggered the broad uprising across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but Joelson believes its influence can still be felt in initiatives like artist-led declarations and climate activism networks, as well as in how makers handle the eco-friendliness of their methods. This is the reason she is restaging it to commemorate its ten-year mark. Among the key participants taking part currently are A Man Called Adam and other notable figures. They have all designed posters, made video appeals, and produced installations set to be revealed on 4 November 2025.

Sowing Change

In conversation with one participant, she is working outdoors in Kent, cultivating apple trees that will create a coiled garden. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is part creative piece and half educational workshop. She describes, the planning and planting sessions have already involved learning about measurements (spacing the planting intervals), genetics (studying the hereditary traits), and origins (tracing the journeys of how different apples came to the UK).

A lot of the apples were chosen because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Bloody Butcher. We have one apple that releases red juice

“A lot of the apples were chosen because they’ve got funny names such as the Duck’s Bill,” she explains. “We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ red juice. Every one carries histories attached. The decio apple was imported by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that fell from a tree and landed on the scientist’s head.”

Gallaccio wanted the children to be more thoughtfully connected of nature and the power we have over it. “To many of them, apples were just things you buy from a supermarket, so I was urging them, on their next shopping trip, to read the label and see the variety and where they were grown. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Cultural Projects Throughout Britain

In London, one artist’s project on disappearance will include attendees exploring an art institution on a mission to find the seven major glaciers that have been lost in modern times. Each glacier will be depicted on the gallery’s windows and walls using ultraviolet markers. Whenever one is found, a bell will ring and a performance will be performed to commemorate that particular glacier.

Meanwhile, up in Barrow-in-Furness, Maddi Nicholson will be putting on a public show about our disconnection from the land, as well as hosting a community dinner, cooked from organic, local produce. Further north, Uta Kögelsberger is broadcasting her environmental performance, in which local singers begin a project to sing plants back to health in a green space.

Children’s Voices

Similar to other artists, another participant will be collaborating with schoolchildren – on the actual event she is aiming to cover a cultural venue in children’s artwork that capture their dreams and worries for the years ahead. “Youthful expressions are impactful because they’re not as restricted as adults’,” she says in her public appeal. “What children have to offer to the world is something distinctive and hopefully it will provoke a awareness of obligation from each person. Youth is pure. They have concerns for tomorrow. But let’s not make it about anxiety – it should be about positivity and us ensuring that they get a future.”

Remembrance and Reflection

A participant’s work also appeals to children. Drawing on past experience, his avian project involves illustrating avians and then embodying them – and for the event he is planning to tackle a local symbol. He is also organizing a guided walk of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his long-term work over the last two decades. That ongoing series started after he experienced several events of discrimination on a particular day. As a reaction, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the location of every incident and document it – the project has since spiralled to cover events experienced by other people across the world. “I place the plants there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “Apparently pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

He picked the flower not just for the clear connection – it has long been a slur – but also because its name derives from the French verb, penser, to think. “People connected it with a man who is reflective, and that, of course, is a negative trait,” he says.

The project on 4 November is to plant pansies at new locations and also replant flowers in places he has honored before, all the while discussing with those on the itinerant journey about the events and his recollections. “I’ve recorded quite a few since I last planted,” he says mournfully.

Progressing Optimistically

Harfleet hopes his work – and