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Back in 2015, artist and activist Gustav Metzger launched one of his last significant endeavors. Famed for pioneering auto-destructive art, Metzger had devoted his career to addressing societal issues from anti-nuclear advocacy to vegetarianism. Via a concise video message, he issued a call for a worldwide initiative to remember nature.

“I call upon you for your involvement in this worldwide call for a day of action to commemorate our planet on the fourth of November, 2015,” he stated, encouraging makers and thinkers to stand against the steady eradication of living beings. “Our task is to help the public recall of the diversity and intricacy in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore territories that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Birth of Nature Remembrance

Thus the environmental art day came into being, a day when artists across the country created responses to the escalating planetary emergency. One of the curators, who supported Metzger in his final years, recalls his feeling of immediacy. “There was a great sense of urgency for him at the close of his days,” she says. “I urged him – let’s not mess around. We shouldn’t hold back for financial support or for anyone to approve this. Take action immediately.”

After Ten Years

A decade on, the initiative may not have sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but Joelson believes its impact can still be felt in initiatives like cultural advocacy groups and climate activism networks, as well as in how creatives consider the environmental impact of their work. That’s why she is reviving it to celebrate its ten-year mark. Among the featured creators involved this time are Cornelia Parker and prominent artists. Each has created visual art, made video appeals, and created artworks set to be presented on 4 November 2025.

Planting Hope

Interviewing Anya Gallaccio, she is out in a field in Kent, assisting with planting apple trees that will develop into a coiled garden. Working with schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and part learning experience. As she explains, the preparation and sowing sessions have already incorporated learning about measurements (measuring out the gaps in the orchard), science (studying the apple’s DNA), and history (mapping the stories of how various cultivars arrived in Britain).

Several the apples were chosen because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Bloody Butcher. We have one apple that releases crimson liquid

“A lot of the apples were picked because they’ve got funny names such as the other unusual varieties,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that produces crimson liquid. Every one carries stories behind them. The ancient variety was introduced by the Romans. The local breed is the apple that fell from a tree and struck the scientist’s head.”

The artist aimed the children to be more actively aware of nature and the control we have over it. “For a lot of them, 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 the variety and the source. Hopefully it says Kent!”

Artistic Responses Throughout Britain

In London, one artist’s work about extinction will engage visitors searching an art institution on a quest to find the seven major glaciers that have been lost in recent years. Every ice sheet will be illustrated on the museum surfaces using special pens. Whenever one is found, a bell will ring and a reading will be performed to commemorate that specific ice mass.

Elsewhere, up in another location, Maddi Nicholson will be hosting a open display about our disconnection from the land, as well as holding a communal feast, prepared with sustainable ingredients. Further north, Uta Kögelsberger is streaming her musical project, in which local singers undertake a task to use music to heal flora in a local park.

Youth Perspectives

Like Gallaccio, Cornelia Parker will be engaging schoolchildren – on the day itself she is aiming to decorate an art space in children’s artwork that document their aspirations and concerns for the years ahead. “Children’s words and images are compelling because they’re not as trammelled as adults’,” she says in her public appeal. “Young people’s input to the world is something quite unique and it may provoke a sense of responsibility from us all. Children are innocent. They have concerns for tomorrow. But let’s not make it about worry – it should be about optimism and us ensuring that they have a tomorrow.”

Memorials and Memory

A participant’s work also appeals to children. As a former drag queen, his Birds Can Fly involves sketching winged creatures and then embodying them – and for the initiative he is intending to address a local symbol. He is also organizing a itinerant journey of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his Pansy Project over the last two decades. The project started after he experienced several events of discrimination on a particular day. In response, Harfleet decided to plant a pansy at the spot where it happened and document it – the project has since spiralled to include incidents reported by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “Apparently pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a short-lived memorial.”

Harfleet chose the pansy not just for the direct association – it has long been a slur – but also because its origin is the French verb, penser, to think. “People connected it with a man who is reflective, and that, of course, is a negative trait,” he says.

The project on Remember Nature day is to sow flowers at additional sites and also renew the tributes in places he has honored before, all the while talking to those on the itinerant journey about the occurrences and his personal experiences. “There’s been quite a few after my previous work,” he says with regret.

Progressing Optimistically

He desires his work – and