🔗 Share this article

Back in 2015, artist and activist Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his ultimate significant endeavors. Recognized for pioneering self-destructive creations, Metzger had dedicated his life to addressing human struggles from anti-nuclear advocacy to ethical eating. Through a short video message, he issued a call for a international event to remember nature.

“This is my appeal for your participation in this international summons for a day of action to remember nature on November 4th, 2015,” he stated, urging artists and creatives to resist the ongoing loss of living beings. “The mission is to help the public recall of the diversity and intricacy in nature … and by doing so art will enter territories that are naturally imaginative.”

The Birth of Nature Remembrance

In this way the Nature Remembrance initiative was born, a day when creatives nationwide developed works to the ongoing environmental crisis. An organizer, who worked closely with Metzger in his later life, remembers his drive for action. “I sensed a great sense of urgency for him at the close of his days,” she says. “I just said – let’s not mess around. No need to pause for financial support or for anyone to green light this. Take action immediately.”

A Decade Later

After ten years, the project hasn’t quite sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had dreamed of, but organizers feel its impact can still be observed in initiatives like Culture Declares and environmental protests, as well as in how makers handle the eco-friendliness of their work. This is the reason she is reviving it to mark its 10-year anniversary. Part of the key participants involved this time are A Man Called Adam and other notable figures. Each has created visual art, made video appeals, and created artworks set to be presented on 4 November 2025.

Sowing Change

In conversation with the artist, she is out in a field in Kent, cultivating apple trees that will create a coiled garden. Working with schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and part learning experience. According to her, the planning and planting sessions have already incorporated learning about mathematics (measuring out the planting intervals), science (studying the apple’s DNA), and origins (mapping the journeys of how various cultivars arrived in Britain).

A lot of the apples were picked because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Duck’s Bill. We have one apple that produces crimson liquid

“Several the apples were picked because they’ve got amusing labels such as the other unusual varieties,” says Gallaccio. “We have one apple that produces scarlet-colored sap. Each has histories attached. The historical cultivar was introduced by the Romans. The local breed is the apple that descended from a tree and hit the scientist’s head.”

The artist aimed the children to be more consciously engaged of the natural world and the power we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was encouraging them, on their next shopping trip, to read the label and see what they’re called and the source. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Cultural Projects Throughout Britain

Within the city, one artist’s work about extinction will involve participants looking through a major gallery on a mission to find the ice masses that have been lost in modern times. Every ice sheet will be illustrated on the exhibition spaces using special pens. Each discovery, a bell will ring and a reading will be conducted to remember that specific ice mass.

Elsewhere, up in Barrow-in-Furness, Maddi Nicholson will be presenting a free exhibition about our alienation from the environment, as well as holding a shared meal, made using sustainable ingredients. In another city, Uta Kögelsberger is streaming her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which regional performers begin a project to use music to heal flora in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Youth Perspectives

Following this approach, another participant will be engaging schoolchildren – on the scheduled date she is aiming to cover a cultural venue in youth creations that express their dreams and worries for the future. “Youthful expressions are powerful because they’re not as trammelled as adults’,” she says in her public appeal. “What children have to offer to the world is something truly special and it may stimulate a awareness of obligation from each person. Children are innocent. They have anxieties about what’s next. But this shouldn’t be about worry – it should be about hope and making sure that they get a future.”

Remembrance and Reflection

Paul Harfleet’s work also appeals to children. With a background in performance, his Birds Can Fly involves sketching winged creatures and then embodying them – and for the event he is aiming to represent Liverpool’s famous Liver bird. He is also organizing a guided walk of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his ongoing series over the past twenty years. This endeavor began when he experienced three incidents of homophobic abuse on a single day. In response, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the location of every incident and photograph it – the project has since spiralled to include incidents reported by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they fade quickly,” says Harfleet. “Reportedly wildlife enjoys them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

The artist selected the pansy not just for the clear connection – it has long been a slur – but also because its name derives from the French verb, penser, to think. “People connected it with a man who is contemplative, and that, of course, is a terrible thing,” he says.

The plan on the event day is to sow flowers at fresh spots and also replant flowers in places he has previously memorialised, all the while discussing with those on the guided walk about the events and his personal experiences. “There’s been quite a few following earlier installations,” he says mournfully.

Progressing Optimistically

He desires his work – and