🔗 Share this article

In 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger initiated one of his ultimate major projects. Recognized for pioneering auto-destructive art, Metzger had spent a lifetime to responding to global challenges from peace activism to plant-based living. Through a short video message, he made a plea for a worldwide initiative to remember nature.

“This is my appeal for your involvement in this global appeal for a day of action to commemorate our planet on the fourth of November, 2015,” he declared, urging makers and thinkers to resist the continuing disappearance of species. “The mission is to make audiences aware of the diversity and intricacy in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore territories that are naturally imaginative.”

The Birth of Nature Remembrance

And so the environmental art day was born, a day when artists across the country developed works to the ongoing environmental crisis. One of the curators, who supported Metzger in his last days, recalls his drive for action. “There was a profound sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “I urged him – don’t delay. Let’s not wait for financial support or for anyone to authorize this. Take action immediately.”

A Decade Later

A decade on, Remember Nature hasn’t quite sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but organizers feel its influence can still be felt in movements like artist-led declarations and environmental protests, as well as in how artists approach the sustainability of their methods. That’s why she is restaging it to commemorate its 10-year anniversary. Part of the 18 lead artists participating now are Yu-Chen Wang and prominent artists. Each has produced imagery, recorded calls to action, and developed pieces set to be presented on the fourth of November next year.

Sowing Change

When speaking to Anya Gallaccio, she is out in a field in Kent, cultivating apple trees that will develop into a spiral-shaped orchard. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is part creative piece and half educational workshop. As she explains, the planning and planting sessions have already involved learning about maths (spacing the distances between trees), science (exploring the apple’s DNA), and history (mapping the backgrounds of how various cultivars arrived in Britain).

Several the apples were picked because they’ve got funny names such as the Bloody Butcher. We have one apple that releases crimson liquid

“Several the apples were selected because they’ve got humorous titles such as the other unusual varieties,” she explains. “We have one apple that produces scarlet-colored sap. They all have background narratives. The historical cultivar was imported by the Romans. The local breed is the apple that fell from a tree and hit Isaac Newton’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more thoughtfully connected of the natural world and the influence we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you buy from a supermarket, so I was urging them, when they go shopping, to read the label and see the variety and their origin. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Cultural Projects Across the Country

In London, a participant’s Book of Loss will include attendees looking through a major gallery on a mission to find the ice masses that have been vanished in recent years. All formations will be depicted on the exhibition spaces using special pens. Each discovery, a bell will ring and a reading will be conducted to honor that particular glacier.

Meanwhile, up in a northern town, a creative will be presenting a open display about our disconnection from the land, as well as organizing a shared meal, prepared with sustainable ingredients. Over in Newcastle, Uta Kögelsberger is streaming her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which regional performers embark on a mission to use music to heal flora in a green space.

Children’s Voices

Like Gallaccio, Cornelia Parker will be engaging schoolchildren – on the scheduled date she is hoping to cover a cultural venue in kids’ letters and drawings that express their hopes and fears for the tomorrow. “Children’s words and images are powerful because they’re not as inhibited as mature perspectives,” she says in her public appeal. “The contributions of youth to the world is something quite unique and perhaps it can inspire a feeling of duty from each person. Kids are unbiased. They have concerns for tomorrow. But it isn’t meant to be about fear – it should be about optimism and making sure that they see a better world.”

Memorials and Memory

Another artist’s work also resonates for children. With a background in performance, his avian project involves sketching winged creatures and then embodying them – and for the initiative he is aiming to tackle a local symbol. He is also staging a guided walk of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his long-term work over the recent decades. This endeavor started after he endured three incidents of prejudice on a one occasion. As a reaction, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the site of each occurrence and photograph it – the project has since grown to incorporate experiences reported by other people across the world. “The flowers remain there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “Apparently wildlife enjoys them, so they’re a very temporary memorial.”

Harfleet chose the flower not just for the direct association – it has long been a slur – but also because its origin is the French verb, penser, to think. “It became associated with a man who is reflective, and that, of course, is a terrible thing,” he says.

The project on 4 November is to sow flowers at new locations and also renew the tributes in places he has previously memorialised, all the while discussing with those on the guided walk about the occurrences and his recollections. “There’s been quite a few following earlier installations,” he says with regret.

Advancing Positively

The artist wishes his work – and