🔗 Share this article

During 2015, artist and activist Gustav Metzger initiated one of his last significant endeavors. Known for creating self-destructive creations, Metzger had dedicated his life to responding to societal issues from nuclear disarmament to plant-based living. Through a short video message, he issued a call for a worldwide initiative to celebrate the natural world.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your involvement in this worldwide call for a day of action to remember nature on 4 November 2015,” he stated, urging artists and creatives to resist the steady eradication of flora and fauna. “Our task is to make audiences aware of the diversity and intricacy in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into domains that are naturally imaginative.”

The Inception of Environmental Reflection

And so Remember Nature was born, a day when creatives nationwide created responses to the escalating planetary emergency. An organizer, who worked closely with Metzger in his later life, recalls his feeling of immediacy. “I sensed a great sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “My advice was – let’s not mess around. Let’s not wait for sponsorship or for anyone to green light this. Take action immediately.”

A Decade Later

A decade on, the initiative hasn’t quite triggered the broad uprising across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but Joelson believes its influence can still be seen in initiatives like Culture Declares and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how makers handle the sustainability of their practices. That’s why she is relaunching it to celebrate its ten-year mark. Part of the 18 lead artists taking part currently are Yu-Chen Wang and Anya Gallaccio. They have all designed posters, shared messages, and created artworks set to be revealed on the fourth of November next year.

Planting Hope

When speaking to one participant, she is on site in Kent, cultivating apple trees that will grow to form a coiled garden. Engaging schoolchildren, her project is part creative piece and somewhat instructive. As she explains, the planning and planting sessions have already included learning about mathematics (measuring out the gaps in the orchard), genetics (discussing the hereditary traits), and geography (mapping the backgrounds of how different apples came to the UK).

Many of the apples were selected because they’ve got funny names such as the Duck’s Bill. We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ crimson liquid

“A lot of the apples were chosen because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Duck’s Bill,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that releases red juice. Every one carries background narratives. The historical cultivar was introduced by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that descended from a tree and struck Isaac Newton’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more thoughtfully connected of the environment 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 check the packaging and see what they’re called and where they were grown. Hopefully it says Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Nationwide

At the capital, Youngsook Choi’s Book of Loss will include attendees searching a major gallery on a mission to find the ice masses that have been disappeared in recent years. Each glacier will be illustrated on the exhibition spaces using ultraviolet markers. Each discovery, a chime will sound and a reading will be held to commemorate that particular glacier.

At the same time, up in a northern town, a creative will be putting on a open display about our disconnection from the land, as well as organizing a community dinner, prepared with sustainable ingredients. Further north, Uta Kögelsberger is streaming her environmental performance, in which regional performers undertake a task to sing plants back to health in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Young Insights

Following this approach, Cornelia Parker will be collaborating with schoolchildren – on the day itself she is hoping to decorate a cultural venue in youth creations that capture their hopes and fears for the future. “Kids’ art are impactful because they’re not as restricted as grown-ups’,” she says in her recorded message. “What children have to offer to the world is something distinctive and perhaps it can inspire a sense of responsibility from us all. Kids are unbiased. They have concerns for tomorrow. But this shouldn’t be about worry – it should be about positivity and us ensuring that they see a better world.”

Remembrance and Reflection

A participant’s work also connects with children. As a former drag queen, his Birds Can Fly involves sketching winged creatures and then embodying them – and for the event he is aiming to address a local symbol. He is also organizing a guided walk of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his ongoing series over the recent decades. That ongoing series commenced following he endured multiple occurrences of discrimination on a one occasion. To counter this, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the location of every incident and photograph it – the project has since spiralled to include incidents shared 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 very temporary memorial.”

He picked the flower not just for the clear connection – it has long been a term of homophobic abuse – but also because its etymology comes from the French verb, penser, to think. “People connected it with a man who is reflective, and that, of course, is a terrible thing,” he says.

The intention on the event day is to place blooms at fresh spots and also renew the tributes in places he has honored before, all the while conversing with those on the walking tour about the occurrences and his memories of them. “I’ve recorded quite a few since I last planted,” he says mournfully.

Advancing Positively

He desires his work – and