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During 2015, artist and activist Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his final significant endeavors. Known for pioneering art that erases itself, Metzger had devoted his career to addressing global challenges from peace activism to plant-based living. Through a short video message, he made a plea for a international event to celebrate the natural world.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your involvement in this worldwide call for a day of action to commemorate our planet on November 4th, 2015,” he stated, urging cultural workers to oppose the ongoing loss of living beings. “Our responsibility is to help the public recall of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore territories that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Inception of Nature Remembrance

Thus Remember Nature came into being, a day when creatives nationwide created responses to the escalating planetary emergency. One of the curators, who supported Metzger in his final years, notes his feeling of immediacy. “I sensed a profound sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “My advice was – don’t delay. We shouldn’t hold back for funding or for anyone to approve this. Let’s just do it.”

A Decade Later

A decade on, the initiative may not have incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but Joelson believes its legacy can still be seen in initiatives like artist-led declarations and environmental protests, as well as in how creatives consider the environmental impact of their practices. That’s why she is relaunching it to celebrate its ten-year mark. Included in the key participants involved this time are A Man Called Adam and Anya Gallaccio. They have all designed posters, recorded calls to action, and produced installations set to be revealed on 4 November 2025.

Sowing Change

When speaking to one participant, she is working outdoors in the countryside, assisting with planting apple trees that will create a circular grove. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is half artwork and somewhat instructive. According to her, the design and cultivation sessions have already incorporated learning about maths (measuring out the distances between trees), biology (discussing the apple’s DNA), and origins (tracing the backgrounds of how different apples arrived in Britain).

Many of the apples were chosen because they’ve got amusing labels such as the other unusual varieties. We have one apple that produces scarcolored sap

“Many of the apples were selected because they’ve got humorous titles such as the other unusual varieties,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ scarlet-colored sap. Each has background narratives. The ancient variety was introduced by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that dropped off a tree and struck the scientist’s head.”

The artist aimed the children to be more thoughtfully connected of nature and the power we have over it. “For a lot 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 the variety and where they were grown. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Across the Country

At the capital, a participant’s Book of Loss will include attendees exploring a major gallery on a journey to find the ice masses that have been vanished in recent years. Every ice sheet will be drawn on the museum surfaces using invisible ink. Whenever one is found, a bell will ring and a reading will be held to honor that particular glacier.

Elsewhere, up in a northern town, Maddi Nicholson will be putting on a open display about our alienation from the environment, as well as organizing a shared meal, cooked from regional food. Further north, a participant is streaming her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which local singers begin a project to use music to heal flora in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Youth Perspectives

Like Gallaccio, another participant will be collaborating with schoolchildren – on the day itself she is hoping to decorate an art space in children’s artwork that capture their aspirations and concerns for the tomorrow. “Children’s words and images are compelling because they’re not as restricted as grown-ups’,” she says in her call to action video. “The contributions of youth to the world is something quite unique and it may provoke a sense of responsibility from us all. Youth is pure. They have fears about the future. But let’s not make it about worry – it should be about hope and us ensuring that they have a tomorrow.”

Memorials and Memory

Paul Harfleet’s work also connects with children. As a former drag queen, his avian project involves sketching winged creatures and then dressing up as them – and for the event he is aiming to represent a local symbol. He is also organizing a itinerant journey of the city, stopping at places that have been part of his Pansy Project over the past twenty years. The project began when he endured several events of homophobic abuse on a one occasion. To counter this, Harfleet decided to plant a pansy at the location of every incident and record it – the project has since grown to incorporate experiences reported by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “Reportedly wildlife enjoys them, so they’re a very temporary memorial.”

He picked the flower not just for the clear connection – 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 thoughtful, and that, of course, is a negative trait,” he says.

The plan on Remember Nature day is to place blooms at new locations and also refresh the memorials in places he has marked earlier, all the while discussing with those on the guided walk about the events and his personal experiences. “We’ve seen quite a few following earlier installations,” he says mournfully.

Progressing Optimistically

He desires his work – and