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Back in 2015, artist and activist Gustav Metzger initiated one of his ultimate major projects. Famed for pioneering self-destructive creations, Metzger had devoted his career to addressing global challenges from nuclear disarmament to plant-based living. Via a concise video message, he requested support for a worldwide initiative to celebrate the natural world.

“This is my appeal for your involvement in this global appeal for a day of action to commemorate our planet on 4 November 2015,” he declared, urging cultural workers to stand against the steady eradication of living beings. “Our responsibility is to make audiences aware of the diversity and intricacy in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore realms that are naturally imaginative.”

The Creation of Remember Nature

In this way the environmental art day came into being, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain developed works to the ongoing environmental crisis. An organizer, who cared for Metzger in his last days, notes his sense of urgency. “I sensed a great sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “My advice was – don’t delay. Let’s not wait for funding or for anyone to approve this. We should proceed.”

Ten Years On

Ten years later, the initiative did not sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had dreamed of, but Joelson believes its influence can still be observed in initiatives like Culture Declares and climate activism networks, as well as in how makers handle the environmental impact of their work. That’s why she is relaunching it to commemorate its 10-year anniversary. Among the key participants involved this time are Cornelia Parker and prominent artists. All participants have created visual art, shared messages, and created artworks set to be presented on 4 November 2025.

Sowing Change

When speaking to one participant, she is on site in the countryside, helping plant apple trees that will grow to form a coiled garden. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and half educational workshop. She describes, the planning and planting sessions have already incorporated learning about maths (spacing the planting intervals), genetics (studying the apple’s DNA), and origins (researching the journeys of how different apples were introduced to England).

Several the apples were chosen because they’ve got amusing labels such as the other unusual varieties. We have one apple that produces crimson liquid

“Many of the apples were selected because they’ve got funny names such as the other unusual varieties,” she explains. “We have one apple that produces scarlet-colored sap. Each has histories attached. The decio apple was brought over by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that descended from a tree and landed on Isaac Newton’s head.”

The artist aimed the children to be more actively aware of the natural world and the power we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you buy from a supermarket, so I was urging them, on their next shopping trip, to look on the bag and see the variety and their origin. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Artistic Responses Across the Country

Within the city, a participant’s Book of Loss will engage visitors looking through a major gallery on a journey to find the frozen formations that have been vanished in recent years. Each glacier will be depicted on the exhibition spaces using invisible ink. Each discovery, a alert will occur and a performance will be held to honor that particular glacier.

At the same time, up in Barrow-in-Furness, a creative will be presenting a public show about our alienation from the environment, as well as holding a shared meal, made using sustainable ingredients. In another city, a participant is broadcasting her environmental performance, in which local singers begin a project to use music to heal flora in a local park.

Children’s Voices

Like Gallaccio, a featured creator will be engaging schoolchildren – on the day itself she is hoping to decorate Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in kids’ letters and drawings that capture their hopes and fears for the years ahead. “Children’s words and images are impactful because they’re not as inhibited as mature perspectives,” she says in her call to action video. “The contributions of youth to the world is something truly special and hopefully it will inspire a sense of responsibility from everyone. Youth is pure. They have concerns for tomorrow. But let’s not make it about worry – it should be about hope and our responsibility that they get a future.”

Memorials and Memory

Paul Harfleet’s work also connects with children. Drawing on past experience, his Birds Can Fly involves drawing birds and then performing as birds – and for Remember Nature day he is aiming to address an iconic figure. He is also staging a walking tour of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his ongoing series over the recent decades. The project started after he experienced multiple occurrences of homophobic abuse on a one occasion. In response, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the spot where it happened and photograph it – the project has since expanded to include incidents reported by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they fade quickly,” says Harfleet. “It seems pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a very temporary memorial.”

He picked the flower not just for the obvious reason – 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 reflective, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The project on Remember Nature day is to sow flowers at new locations and also refresh the memorials in places he has previously memorialised, all the while talking to those on the guided walk about the events and his personal experiences. “I’ve recorded quite a few following earlier installations,” he says mournfully.

Moving Forward with Hope

The artist wishes his work – and