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Back in 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his ultimate major projects. Famed for introducing auto-destructive art, Metzger had devoted his career to responding to global challenges from anti-nuclear advocacy to plant-based living. Through a short video message, he requested support for a global day of action to remember nature.

“This is my appeal for your participation in this international summons for a day of action to commemorate our planet on the fourth of November, 2015,” he stated, urging makers and thinkers to resist the steady eradication of species. “The mission is to help the public recall of the diversity and intricacy in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into territories that are inherently creative.”

The Inception of Environmental Reflection

In this way the Nature Remembrance initiative was established, a day when creatives nationwide created responses to the escalating planetary emergency. Jo Joelson, who supported Metzger in his final years, notes his feeling of immediacy. “I sensed a great sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “I just said – let’s not mess around. Let’s not wait for funding or for anyone to approve this. We should proceed.”

After Ten Years

Ten years later, the initiative hasn’t quite triggered the broad uprising across the arts that Metzger had dreamed of, but Joelson believes its impact can still be observed in initiatives like Culture Declares and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how makers handle the environmental impact of their practices. This is the reason she is restaging it to mark its 10-year anniversary. Among the featured creators participating now are A Man Called Adam and other notable figures. They have all designed posters, made video appeals, and created artworks set to be revealed on November 4, 2025.

Sowing Change

Interviewing one participant, she is on site in Kent, cultivating apple trees that will create a coiled garden. Engaging schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and somewhat instructive. As she explains, the planning and planting sessions have already involved learning about maths (measuring out the gaps in the orchard), science (discussing the genetic makeup), and origins (tracing the journeys of how distinct varieties were introduced to England).

A lot of the apples were picked because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Duck’s Bill. We have one apple that releases scarcolored sap

“Many of the apples were picked because they’ve got funny names such as the Bloody Butcher,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that releases crimson liquid. Each has background narratives. The decio apple was introduced by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that fell from a tree and landed on Isaac Newton’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more thoughtfully connected of nature and the control we have over it. “To many of them, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was prompting them, on their next shopping trip, to check the packaging and see their names and where they were grown. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Nationwide

In London, a participant’s project on disappearance will engage visitors looking through an art institution on a quest to find the frozen formations that have been disappeared in the past decade. Every ice sheet will be depicted on the museum surfaces using ultraviolet markers. Each discovery, a alert will occur and a performance will be performed to remember that particular glacier.

Meanwhile, up in a northern town, an artist will be presenting a free exhibition about our separation from nature, as well as hosting a communal feast, cooked from regional food. In another city, Uta Kögelsberger is broadcasting her musical project, in which local singers begin a project to use music to heal flora in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Young Insights

Similar to other artists, another participant will be collaborating with schoolchildren – on the actual event she is planning to cover Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in children’s artwork that capture their hopes and fears 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 quite unique and it may inspire a sense of responsibility from each person. Youth is pure. They have fears about the future. But let’s not make it about worry – it should be about optimism and us ensuring that they see a better world.”

Remembrance and Reflection

Another artist’s work also connects with children. Drawing on past experience, his feathered initiative involves drawing birds and then performing as birds – and for Remember Nature day he is aiming to represent Liverpool’s famous Liver bird. He is also staging a guided walk of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his ongoing series over the last two decades. The project started after he endured multiple occurrences of prejudice on a single day. To counter this, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the spot where it happened and photograph it – the project has since expanded to incorporate experiences reported by other people across the world. “I place the plants there but they fade quickly,” says Harfleet. “Apparently birds consume them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

He picked the bloom 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 contemplative, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The plan on 4 November is to sow flowers at fresh spots and also refresh the memorials in places he has honored before, all the while conversing with those on the walking tour about the incidents and his memories of them. “I’ve recorded quite a few following earlier installations,” he says mournfully.

Progressing Optimistically

Harfleet hopes his work – and