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During 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger launched one of his last important works. Recognized for pioneering auto-destructive art, Metzger had spent a lifetime to responding to global challenges from peace activism to ethical eating. Via a concise video message, he issued a call for a global day of action to remember nature.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your engagement in this worldwide call for a day of action to remember nature on November 4th, 2015,” he stated, urging artists and creatives to resist the steady eradication of flora and fauna. “Our responsibility is to make audiences aware of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so art will enter domains that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Creation of Remember Nature

Thus Remember Nature was born, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain developed works to the ongoing environmental crisis. One of the curators, who supported Metzger in his final years, notes his feeling of immediacy. “He had a profound sense of urgency for him at the close of his days,” she says. “I just said – don’t delay. We shouldn’t hold back for funding or for anyone to approve this. Let’s just do it.”

A Decade Later

Ten years later, the project did not triggered the broad uprising across the arts that Metzger had dreamed of, but Joelson believes its legacy can still be seen in initiatives like Culture Declares and environmental protests, as well as in how creatives consider the environmental impact of their work. That’s why she is relaunching it to celebrate its ten-year mark. Included in the featured creators involved this time are Cornelia Parker and Anya Gallaccio. They have all created visual art, made video appeals, and produced installations set to be unveiled on the fourth of November next year.

Planting Hope

When speaking to the artist, she is out in a field in the countryside, helping plant apple trees that will grow to form a circular grove. Engaging schoolchildren, her project is part creative piece and somewhat instructive. She describes, the design and cultivation sessions have already involved learning about maths (calculating the planting intervals), genetics (studying the genetic makeup), and origins (researching the journeys of how distinct varieties came to the UK).

A lot of the apples were selected because they’ve got humorous titles such as the other unusual varieties. We have one apple that produces scarcolored sap

“Many of the apples were picked because they’ve got amusing labels such as the other unusual varieties,” says Gallaccio. “We have one apple that produces scarlet-colored sap. They all have stories behind them. The historical cultivar was introduced by the Romans. The local breed is the apple that fell from a tree and hit the physicist’s head.”

Gallaccio wanted the children to be more consciously engaged of the natural world and the control 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 their names and the source. Hopefully it says Kent!”

Cultural Projects Throughout Britain

At the capital, Youngsook Choi’s Book of Loss will engage visitors searching an art institution on a quest to find the frozen formations that have been disappeared in the past decade. Every ice sheet will be drawn on the gallery’s windows and walls using ultraviolet markers. Whenever one is found, a chime will sound and a performance will be conducted to honor that specific ice mass.

Elsewhere, up in another location, Maddi Nicholson will be hosting a free exhibition about our alienation from the environment, as well as organizing a communal feast, prepared with regional food. In another city, Uta Kögelsberger is broadcasting her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which community vocalists begin a project to use music to heal flora in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Children’s Voices

Similar to other artists, a featured creator will be engaging schoolchildren – on the actual event she is aiming to decorate Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in youth creations that document their dreams and worries for the tomorrow. “Kids’ art are powerful because they’re not as trammelled as grown-ups’,” she says in her public appeal. “Young people’s input to the world is something distinctive and perhaps it can stimulate a awareness of obligation from each person. Youth is pure. They have concerns for tomorrow. But this shouldn’t be about worry – it should be about hope and us ensuring that they have a tomorrow.”

Tributes and Thoughts

Paul Harfleet’s work also appeals to children. With a background in performance, his avian project involves sketching winged creatures and then dressing up as them – and for the event he is planning to represent an iconic figure. He is also staging a guided walk of the city, stopping at places that have been part of his Pansy Project over the recent decades. This endeavor started after he faced multiple occurrences of prejudice on a single day. In response, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the site of each occurrence and photograph it – the project has since grown to cover events experienced by other people across the world. “The flowers remain there but they fade quickly,” says Harfleet. “It seems birds consume them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

The artist selected 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. “It became associated with a man who is contemplative, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The project on Remember Nature day is to plant pansies at fresh spots and also refresh the memorials in places he has honored before, all the while discussing with those on the walking tour about the events and his memories of them. “I’ve recorded quite a few following earlier installations,” he says mournfully.

Progressing Optimistically

He desires his work – and