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Back in 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger initiated one of his final important works. Famed for pioneering auto-destructive art, Metzger had dedicated his life to confronting global challenges from peace activism to vegetarianism. In a brief video message, he requested support for a global day of action to honor the environment.

“I call upon you for your engagement in this international summons for a day of action to remember nature on the fourth of November, 2015,” he declared, urging cultural workers to resist the steady eradication of flora and fauna. “Our task is to help the public recall of the diversity and intricacy in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into domains that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Inception of Remember Nature

In this way the Nature Remembrance initiative came into being, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain created responses to the escalating planetary emergency. Jo Joelson, who supported Metzger in his final years, notes his feeling of immediacy. “There was a great sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “I urged him – let’s not mess around. No need to pause for sponsorship or for anyone to authorize this. Let’s just do it.”

After Ten Years

After ten years, the project hasn’t quite triggered the broad uprising across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but supporters think its impact can still be felt in movements like Culture Declares and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how artists approach the sustainability of their methods. This is the reason she is restaging it to celebrate its 10-year anniversary. Included in the key participants involved this time are A Man Called Adam and prominent artists. Each has designed posters, made video appeals, and produced installations set to be revealed on 4 November 2025.

Sowing Change

In conversation with Anya Gallaccio, she is out in a field in the countryside, cultivating apple trees that will create a coiled garden. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is half artwork and part learning experience. According to her, the preparation and sowing sessions have already involved learning about mathematics (calculating the distances between trees), science (discussing the apple’s DNA), and geography (tracing the stories of how different apples were introduced to England).

Several the apples were picked because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Bloody Butcher. We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ red juice

“Several the apples were selected because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Duck’s Bill,” she explains. “We have one apple that produces red juice. They all have background narratives. The decio apple was imported by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that fell from a tree and hit the scientist’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more thoughtfully connected of the natural world and the influence we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you get at a supermarket, so I was encouraging them, when they go shopping, to check the packaging and see what they’re called and their origin. Hopefully it says Kent!”

Cultural Projects Throughout Britain

In London, a participant’s Book of Loss will include attendees searching an art institution on a journey to find the seven major glaciers that have been vanished in modern times. All formations will be depicted on the gallery’s windows and walls using special pens. When located, a bell will ring and a recitation will be conducted to remember that specific ice mass.

Elsewhere, up in Barrow-in-Furness, a creative will be putting on a free exhibition about our disconnection from the land, as well as organizing a community dinner, made using organic, local produce. Further north, a participant is streaming her environmental performance, in which regional performers begin a project to use music to heal flora in a green space.

Children’s Voices

Similar to other artists, a featured creator will be collaborating with schoolchildren – on the actual event she is aiming to fill Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in children’s artwork that document their dreams and worries for the years ahead. “Youthful expressions are impactful because they’re not as restricted as grown-ups’,” she says in her public appeal. “Young people’s input to the world is something quite unique and perhaps it can stimulate a sense of responsibility from everyone. Children are innocent. They have anxieties about what’s next. But this shouldn’t be about anxiety – it should be about optimism and making sure that they have a tomorrow.”

Memorials and Memory

A participant’s work also appeals to children. Drawing on past experience, his feathered initiative involves illustrating avians and then dressing up as them – and for Remember Nature day he is planning to represent an iconic figure. He is also organizing a guided walk of the city, stopping at places that have been part of his long-term work over the last two decades. The project commenced following he endured multiple occurrences of discrimination on a single day. As a reaction, Harfleet decided to plant a pansy at the spot where it happened and record it – the project has since grown to include incidents shared by other people across the world. “The flowers remain there but they fade quickly,” says Harfleet. “It seems pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a short-lived memorial.”

Harfleet chose the flower not just for the direct association – it has long been a derogatory label – but also because its etymology comes from the French verb, penser, to think. “People connected it with a man who is reflective, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The intention on 4 November is to plant pansies at fresh spots and also replant flowers in places he has previously memorialised, all the while discussing with those on the walking tour about the events and his memories of them. “There’s been quite a few since I last planted,” he says sadly.

Moving Forward with Hope

The artist wishes his work – and