🔗 Share this article

During 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger launched one of his last important works. Famed for creating auto-destructive art, Metzger had devoted his career to addressing societal issues from nuclear disarmament to ethical eating. Through a short video message, he made a plea for a global day of action to remember nature.

“This is my appeal for your involvement in this global appeal for a day of action to remember nature on 4 November 2015,” he announced, inviting artists and creatives to oppose the ongoing loss of species. “The mission is to make audiences aware of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into realms that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Inception of Remember Nature

In this way Remember Nature was born, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain created responses to the unfolding climate catastrophe. Jo Joelson, who worked closely with Metzger in his last days, remembers his sense of urgency. “There was a profound sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “I just said – let’s not mess around. Let’s not wait for financial support or for anyone to approve this. Let’s just do it.”

A Decade Later

A decade on, Remember Nature hasn’t quite incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had envisioned, but Joelson believes its influence can still be observed in movements like cultural advocacy groups and environmental protests, as well as in how makers handle the environmental impact of their methods. That’s why she is relaunching it to commemorate its 10-year anniversary. Included in the key participants involved this time are A Man Called Adam and prominent artists. They have all produced imagery, made video appeals, and created artworks set to be unveiled on November 4, 2025.

Cultivating Awareness

When speaking to Anya Gallaccio, she is on site in the countryside, helping plant apple trees that will develop into a coiled garden. Working with schoolchildren, her project is part creative piece and part learning experience. As she explains, the planning and planting sessions have already involved learning about mathematics (measuring out the distances between trees), genetics (discussing the apple’s DNA), and geography (researching the journeys of how different apples came to the UK).

Several the apples were picked because they’ve got amusing labels such as the other unusual varieties. We have one apple that produces red juice

“A lot of the apples were chosen because they’ve got humorous titles such as the other unusual varieties,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that releases crimson liquid. They all have stories behind them. The historical cultivar was introduced by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that dropped off a tree and landed on the physicist’s head.”

Gallaccio wanted the children to be more actively aware of nature and the power we have over it. “In their experience, 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 their origin. Hopefully it says Kent!”

Artistic Responses Throughout Britain

At the capital, a participant’s work about extinction will include attendees exploring Tate Modern on a quest to find the seven major glaciers that have been vanished in modern times. Each glacier will be illustrated on the museum surfaces using ultraviolet markers. Each discovery, a bell will ring and a recitation will be conducted to honor that individual formation.

At the same time, up in Barrow-in-Furness, Maddi Nicholson will be presenting a free exhibition about our disconnection from the land, as well as holding a communal feast, made using organic, local produce. Over in Newcastle, a participant is sharing her musical project, in which community vocalists embark on a mission to use music to heal flora in a green space.

Youth Perspectives

Similar to other artists, another participant will be collaborating with schoolchildren – on the day itself she is hoping to cover Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in children’s artwork that capture their dreams and worries for the years ahead. “Kids’ art are powerful because they’re not as inhibited 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 awareness of obligation from us all. Kids are unbiased. They have fears about the future. But this shouldn’t be about fear – it should be about positivity and our responsibility that they get a future.”

Tributes and Thoughts

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 intending to address an iconic figure. He is also staging a walking tour of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his long-term work over the recent decades. The project started after he experienced multiple occurrences of prejudice on a single day. As a reaction, Harfleet decided to plant a pansy at the location of every incident and record it – the project has since grown to cover events shared by other people across the world. “I place the plants there but they fade quickly,” says Harfleet. “It seems birds consume them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

He picked the flower not just for the direct association – it has long been a term of homophobic abuse – but also because its origin is the French verb, penser, to think. “It was linked to a man who is reflective, and that, of course, is a negative trait,” he says.

The plan on the event day is to place blooms at fresh spots and also refresh the memorials in places he has previously memorialised, all the while discussing with those on the itinerant journey about the events and his memories of them. “We’ve seen quite a few following earlier installations,” he says with regret.

Moving Forward with Hope

The artist wishes his work – and