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During 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger launched one of his ultimate major projects. Known for creating auto-destructive art, Metzger had spent a lifetime to addressing societal issues from anti-nuclear advocacy to vegetarianism. In a brief video message, he requested support for a international event to remember nature.

“This is my appeal for your participation in this global appeal for a day of action to reflect on the environment on 4 November 2015,” he announced, inviting artists and creatives to resist the ongoing loss of species. “Our responsibility is to help the public recall of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into realms that are naturally imaginative.”

The Inception of Remember Nature

In this way Remember Nature was established, a day when creatives nationwide produced pieces to the ongoing environmental crisis. Jo Joelson, who supported Metzger in his final years, remembers his feeling of immediacy. “He had a profound sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “I just said – let’s not mess around. We shouldn’t hold back for sponsorship or for anyone to approve this. We should proceed.”

After Ten Years

Ten years later, the initiative did not triggered the broad uprising across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but Joelson believes its influence can still be seen in campaigns like artist-led declarations and environmental protests, as well as in how makers handle the eco-friendliness of their practices. For this purpose she is reviving it to celebrate its decade milestone. Among the 18 lead artists taking part currently are Yu-Chen Wang and prominent artists. They have all created visual art, made video appeals, and produced installations set to be unveiled on November 4, 2025.

Cultivating Awareness

Interviewing the artist, she is working outdoors in a rural area, cultivating apple trees that will create a circular grove. Engaging schoolchildren, her project is half artwork and half educational workshop. She describes, the planning and planting sessions have already included learning about maths (calculating the distances between trees), biology (exploring the apple’s DNA), and history (mapping the stories of how different apples were introduced to England).

A lot of the apples were selected because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Bloody Butcher. We have one apple that releases red juice

“A lot of the apples were selected because they’ve got funny names such as the Bloody Butcher,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that releases scarlet-colored sap. Each has stories behind them. The ancient variety was introduced by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that dropped off a tree and landed on the scientist’s head.”

The artist aimed the children to be more actively aware of the environment and the influence we have over it. “To many of them, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was urging them, when they go shopping, to check the packaging and see the variety and the source. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Cultural Projects Throughout Britain

At the capital, one artist’s project on disappearance will include attendees searching an art institution on a mission to find the ice masses that have been disappeared in modern times. Every ice sheet will be drawn on the exhibition spaces using invisible ink. Whenever one is found, a alert will occur and a reading will be performed to commemorate that particular glacier.

At the same time, up in Barrow-in-Furness, a creative will be putting on a free exhibition about our alienation from the environment, as well as organizing a communal feast, cooked from organic, local produce. Further north, an artist is streaming her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which community vocalists begin a project to use music to heal flora in a green space.

Young Insights

Following this approach, a featured creator will be engaging schoolchildren – on the scheduled date she is hoping to fill an art space in youth creations that document their aspirations and concerns for the tomorrow. “Children’s words and images are impactful because they’re not as restricted as grown-ups’,” she says in her recorded message. “Young people’s input to the world is something truly special and it may inspire a feeling of duty from us all. Children are innocent. They have anxieties about what’s next. But let’s not make it about worry – it should be about hope and us ensuring that they have a tomorrow.”

Remembrance and Reflection

Another artist’s work also appeals to children. With a background in performance, his Birds Can Fly involves illustrating avians and then embodying them – and for the event he is aiming to represent a local symbol. He is also organizing a guided walk of the city, stopping at places that have been part of his Pansy Project over the recent decades. That ongoing series started after he endured three incidents of discrimination on a single day. To counter this, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the spot where it happened and photograph it – the project has since grown to incorporate experiences reported by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “Reportedly birds consume them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

Harfleet chose the bloom 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 thoughtful, and that, of course, is a terrible thing,” he says.

The intention on the event day is to place blooms at fresh spots and also refresh the memorials in places he has marked earlier, all the while conversing with those on the walking tour about the events and his memories of them. “We’ve seen quite a few following earlier installations,” he says sadly.

Moving Forward with Hope

He desires his work – and