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During 2015, artist and activist Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his ultimate significant endeavors. Famed for introducing art that erases itself, Metzger had devoted his career to responding to global challenges from peace activism to plant-based living. In a brief video message, he issued a call for a worldwide initiative to celebrate the natural world.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your participation in this international summons for a day of action to reflect on the environment on 4 November 2015,” he announced, urging makers and thinkers to stand against the continuing disappearance of species. “The mission is to remind people of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore realms that are naturally imaginative.”

The Birth of Remember Nature

And so the Nature Remembrance initiative was born, a day when artists across the country created responses to the escalating planetary emergency. Jo Joelson, who cared for Metzger in his later life, recalls his feeling of immediacy. “I sensed a great sense of urgency for him at the close of his days,” she says. “I urged him – we must act now. Let’s not wait for sponsorship or for anyone to green light this. We should proceed.”

Ten Years On

A decade on, the initiative did not triggered the broad uprising across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but Joelson believes its impact can still be observed in movements like Culture Declares and environmental protests, as well as in how creatives consider the sustainability of their methods. This is the reason she is reviving it to commemorate its decade milestone. Part of the key participants involved this time are Cornelia Parker and prominent artists. They have all designed posters, made video appeals, and produced installations set to be unveiled on the fourth of November next year.

Planting Hope

Interviewing one participant, she is on site in Kent, cultivating apple trees that will grow to form a circular grove. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is half artwork and somewhat instructive. As she explains, the design and cultivation sessions have already included learning about measurements (spacing the planting intervals), genetics (exploring the genetic makeup), and geography (tracing the backgrounds of how different apples arrived in Britain).

Many of the apples were selected because they’ve got funny names such as the Duck’s Bill. We have one apple that releases scarcolored sap

“Several the apples were chosen because they’ve got funny names such as the Duck’s Bill,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that releases crimson liquid. Each has background narratives. The ancient variety was brought over by the Romans. The local breed is the apple that dropped off a tree and landed on the physicist’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more consciously engaged of the natural world and the power we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was urging them, next time they were out, to check the packaging and see what they’re called and where they were grown. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Artistic Responses Nationwide

In London, one artist’s project on disappearance will involve participants searching a major gallery on a quest to find the seven major glaciers that have been vanished in recent years. Each glacier will be drawn on the museum surfaces using invisible ink. When located, a chime will sound and a performance will be performed to remember that individual formation.

Elsewhere, up in Barrow-in-Furness, Maddi Nicholson will be hosting a free exhibition about our alienation from the environment, as well as hosting a community dinner, cooked from sustainable ingredients. Over in Newcastle, Uta Kögelsberger is streaming her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which community vocalists begin a project to sing plants back to health in a local park.

Young Insights

Like Gallaccio, Cornelia Parker will be working with schoolchildren – on the actual event she is hoping to fill Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in youth creations that capture their aspirations and concerns for the tomorrow. “Children’s words and images are impactful because they’re not as trammelled as grown-ups’,” she says in her call to action video. “Young people’s input to the world is something quite unique and perhaps it can provoke a awareness of obligation from everyone. Children are innocent. They have fears about the future. But this shouldn’t be about anxiety – it should be about optimism and us ensuring that they get a future.”

Remembrance and Reflection

Another artist’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 Remember Nature day he is intending to tackle an iconic figure. He is also conducting a guided walk of the city, stopping at places that have been part of his Pansy Project over the past twenty years. The project commenced following he experienced multiple occurrences of prejudice on a one occasion. In response, Harfleet decided to plant a pansy at the spot where it happened 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 very temporary memorial.”

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

The project on Remember Nature day is to place blooms at new locations and also refresh the memorials in places he has honored before, all the while talking to those on the walking tour about the occurrences and his memories of them. “We’ve seen quite a few after my previous work,” he says sadly.

Moving Forward with Hope

Harfleet hopes his work – and