🔗 Share this article

Back in 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger initiated one of his final significant endeavors. Famed for creating art that erases itself, Metzger had spent a lifetime to responding to human struggles from nuclear disarmament to vegetarianism. Via a concise video message, he requested support for a worldwide initiative to honor the environment.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your engagement in this global appeal for a day of action to reflect on the environment on November 4th, 2015,” he stated, urging artists and creatives to stand against the ongoing loss of living beings. “The mission is to help the public recall of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so art will enter territories that are inherently creative.”

The Birth of Remember Nature

Thus Remember Nature came into being, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain developed works to the unfolding climate catastrophe. An organizer, who supported Metzger in his later life, recalls his feeling of immediacy. “There was a great sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “My advice was – let’s not mess around. No need to pause for sponsorship or for anyone to green light this. Take action immediately.”

After Ten Years

Ten years later, Remember Nature may not have triggered the broad uprising across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but organizers feel its impact can still be observed in movements like cultural advocacy groups and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how creatives consider the environmental impact of their practices. This is the reason she is restaging it to mark its ten-year mark. Included in the featured creators involved this time are Cornelia Parker and other notable figures. All participants have produced imagery, recorded calls to action, and developed pieces set to be presented on the fourth of November next year.

Planting Hope

When speaking to Anya Gallaccio, she is working outdoors in the countryside, cultivating apple trees that will create a spiral-shaped orchard. Engaging schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and part learning experience. As she explains, the preparation and sowing sessions have already included learning about measurements (measuring out the gaps in the orchard), science (exploring the apple’s DNA), and geography (tracing the backgrounds of how various cultivars came to the UK).

A lot of the apples were picked because they’ve got funny names such as the other unusual varieties. We have one apple that releases scarcolored sap

“Many of the apples were chosen because they’ve got funny names such as the Duck’s Bill,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that produces scarlet-colored sap. Each has background narratives. The decio apple was introduced by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that descended from a tree and landed on the physicist’s head.”

The artist aimed the children to be more actively aware of the natural world and the influence we have over it. “To many of them, apples were just things you get at a supermarket, so I was prompting them, next time they were out, to read the label and see their names and where they were grown. Hopefully it says Kent!”

Cultural Projects Across the Country

In London, a participant’s Book of Loss will engage visitors looking through a major gallery on a mission to find the frozen formations that have been vanished in the past decade. Each glacier will be depicted on the museum surfaces using special pens. Each discovery, a chime will sound and a recitation will be held to commemorate that individual formation.

Meanwhile, up in Barrow-in-Furness, a creative will be presenting a open display about our alienation from the environment, as well as holding a communal feast, prepared with sustainable ingredients. In another city, Uta Kögelsberger is streaming her environmental performance, in which community vocalists begin a project to sing plants back to health in a green space.

Young Insights

Like Gallaccio, a featured creator will be collaborating with schoolchildren – on the day itself she is hoping to fill Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in youth creations that express their hopes and fears for the years ahead. “Youthful expressions are impactful because they’re not as restricted as mature perspectives,” she says in her call to action video. “What children have to offer to the world is something distinctive and hopefully it will inspire a sense of responsibility from us all. Children are innocent. They have anxieties about what’s next. But this shouldn’t be about worry – it should be about positivity and our responsibility that they get a future.”

Tributes and Thoughts

Paul Harfleet’s work also connects with children. Drawing on past experience, his feathered initiative involves sketching winged creatures and then embodying them – and for the event he is intending to tackle Liverpool’s famous Liver bird. He is also conducting a itinerant journey of the city, stopping at places that have been part of his Pansy Project over the last two decades. That ongoing series commenced following he experienced several events of prejudice on a single day. In response, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the location of every incident and photograph it – the project has since expanded to include incidents shared by other people across the world. “I place the plants there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “It seems wildlife enjoys them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

He picked the bloom not just for the obvious reason – it has long been a slur – but also because its origin is the French verb, penser, to think. “It was linked to a man who is thoughtful, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The intention on the event day is to place blooms at new locations and also replant flowers in places he has marked earlier, all the while discussing with those on the guided walk about the occurrences and his personal experiences. “There’s been quite a few following earlier installations,” he says with regret.

Moving Forward with Hope

He desires his work – and