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Back in 2015, artist and activist Gustav Metzger launched one of his last important works. Famed for creating art that erases itself, Metzger had spent a lifetime to responding to human struggles from nuclear disarmament to plant-based living. Via a concise video message, he requested support for a global day of action to honor the environment.

“This is my appeal for your engagement in this worldwide call for a day of action to commemorate our planet on November 4th, 2015,” he declared, encouraging cultural workers to oppose the continuing disappearance of species. “The mission is to make audiences aware of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so art will enter domains that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Birth of Remember Nature

And so the Nature Remembrance initiative was established, a day when artists across the country produced pieces to the escalating planetary emergency. One of the curators, who supported Metzger in his final years, notes his feeling of immediacy. “There was a profound sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “My advice was – we must act now. We shouldn’t hold back for sponsorship or for anyone to approve this. Take action immediately.”

After Ten Years

A decade on, Remember Nature may not have incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but supporters think its impact can still be observed in movements like Culture Declares and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how artists approach the sustainability of their practices. For this purpose she is restaging it to celebrate its ten-year mark. Part of the featured creators involved this time are Yu-Chen Wang and other notable figures. All participants have designed posters, made video appeals, and produced installations set to be unveiled on 4 November 2025.

Sowing Change

In conversation with the artist, she is out in a field in a rural area, helping plant apple trees that will grow to form a circular grove. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is part creative piece and somewhat instructive. She describes, the planning and planting sessions have already involved learning about maths (calculating the gaps in the orchard), science (discussing the apple’s DNA), and geography (researching the backgrounds of how different apples came to the UK).

A lot of the apples were picked because they’ve got amusing labels such as the other unusual varieties. We have one apple that releases crimson liquid

“Many 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 releases scarlet-colored sap. They all have background narratives. The historical cultivar was introduced by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that descended from a tree and hit the physicist’s head.”

Gallaccio wanted the children to be more thoughtfully connected of the environment and the influence we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you buy from a supermarket, so I was encouraging them, on their next shopping trip, to look on the bag and see the variety and their origin. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Across the Country

At the capital, Youngsook Choi’s Book of Loss will engage visitors looking through Tate Modern on a quest to find the ice masses that have been disappeared in modern times. Each glacier will be illustrated on the museum surfaces using special pens. Whenever one is found, a bell will ring and a performance will be conducted to honor that particular glacier.

At the same time, up in a northern town, a creative will be putting on a free exhibition about our disconnection from the land, as well as holding a shared meal, made using sustainable ingredients. Further north, Uta Kögelsberger is streaming her musical project, in which regional performers begin a project to perform for vegetation in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Young Insights

Following this approach, Cornelia Parker will be engaging schoolchildren – on the scheduled date she is hoping to cover Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in children’s artwork that capture their aspirations and concerns for the future. “Children’s words and images are compelling because they’re not as trammelled as grown-ups’,” she says in her public appeal. “The contributions of youth to the world is something truly special and perhaps it can stimulate a awareness of obligation from everyone. Children are innocent. They have anxieties about what’s next. But this shouldn’t be about fear – it should be about hope and us ensuring that they get a future.”

Memorials and Memory

A participant’s work also appeals to children. Drawing on past experience, his avian project involves drawing birds and then dressing up as them – and for the event he is intending to tackle a local symbol. He is also organizing a walking tour of the city, stopping at places that have been part of his long-term work over the recent decades. The project began when he faced several events of prejudice on a single day. As a reaction, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the site of each occurrence and document it – the project has since spiralled to include incidents shared by other people across the world. “I place the plants there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “Apparently pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

The artist selected the pansy not just for the clear connection – it has long been a derogatory label – but also because its origin is the French verb, penser, to think. “People connected it with a man who is contemplative, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The intention on 4 November is to sow flowers at fresh spots and also replant flowers in places he has previously memorialised, all the while discussing with those on the walking tour about the incidents and his memories of them. “We’ve seen quite a few since I last planted,” he says with regret.

Progressing Optimistically

The artist wishes his work – and