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Back in 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger launched one of his last significant endeavors. Known for pioneering auto-destructive art, Metzger had spent a lifetime to addressing societal issues from anti-nuclear advocacy to plant-based living. In a brief video message, he requested support for a international event to remember nature.

“This is my appeal for your engagement in this worldwide call for a day of action to remember nature on November 4th, 2015,” he stated, urging artists and creatives to resist the continuing disappearance of living beings. “The mission is to help the public recall of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore realms that are inherently creative.”

The Birth of Remember Nature

And so Remember Nature came into being, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain created responses to the ongoing environmental crisis. One of the curators, who cared for Metzger in his later life, remembers his drive for action. “There was a profound sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “My advice was – let’s not mess around. We shouldn’t hold back for sponsorship or for anyone to authorize this. We should proceed.”

A Decade Later

Ten years later, the project did not sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but Joelson believes its influence can still be felt in campaigns like Culture Declares and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how makers handle the sustainability of their work. That’s why she is reviving it to commemorate its 10-year anniversary. Included in the key participants taking part currently are Yu-Chen Wang and prominent artists. Each has created visual art, shared messages, and developed pieces set to be unveiled on the fourth of November next year.

Sowing Change

In conversation with one participant, she is out in a field in Kent, cultivating apple trees that will create a circular grove. Engaging schoolchildren, her project is half artwork and part learning experience. She describes, the preparation and sowing sessions have already included learning about measurements (measuring out the distances between trees), genetics (studying the genetic makeup), and geography (mapping the stories of how distinct varieties were introduced to England).

Several the apples were picked because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Bloody Butcher. We have one apple that releases scarcolored sap

“A lot of the apples were chosen because they’ve got humorous titles such as the other unusual varieties,” she explains. “We have one apple that releases crimson liquid. Every one carries histories attached. The historical cultivar was introduced by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that fell from a tree and struck the physicist’s head.”

The artist aimed the children to be more actively aware of nature and the control 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 the variety and where they were grown. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Nationwide

Within the city, a participant’s work about extinction will involve participants exploring an art institution on a journey to find the ice masses that have been vanished in the past decade. Every ice sheet will be drawn on the exhibition spaces using ultraviolet markers. Whenever one is found, a alert will occur and a recitation will be conducted to honor that specific ice mass.

At the same time, up in another location, a creative will be putting on a free exhibition about our disconnection from the land, as well as holding a communal feast, made using organic, local produce. Further north, an artist is sharing her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which local singers embark on a mission to perform for vegetation in a green space.

Young Insights

Following this approach, a featured creator will be working with schoolchildren – on the actual event she is planning to decorate Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in children’s artwork that express their aspirations and concerns for the years ahead. “Children’s words and images are compelling because they’re not as inhibited as mature perspectives,” she says in her public appeal. “What children have to offer to the world is something distinctive and perhaps it can stimulate a awareness of obligation from us all. Children are innocent. They have anxieties about what’s next. But this shouldn’t be about fear – it should be about positivity and making sure that they see a better world.”

Tributes and Thoughts

Paul Harfleet’s work also appeals to children. Drawing on past experience, his feathered initiative involves sketching winged creatures and then dressing up as them – and for the initiative he is planning to tackle an iconic figure. He is also staging a guided walk of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his Pansy Project over the last two decades. This endeavor started after he endured multiple occurrences of prejudice on a particular day. As a reaction, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the spot where it happened and document it – the project has since spiralled to incorporate experiences shared by other people across the world. “The flowers remain there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “It seems birds consume them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

Harfleet chose the pansy not just for the obvious reason – it has long been a term of homophobic abuse – but also because its etymology comes from the French verb, penser, to think. “It became associated with a man who is contemplative, and that, of course, is a negative trait,” he says.

The intention on the event day is to place blooms at additional sites and also renew the tributes in places he has previously memorialised, all the while conversing with those on the guided walk about the events and his personal experiences. “There’s been quite a few following earlier installations,” he says with regret.

Moving Forward with Hope

Harfleet hopes his work – and