🔗 Share this article

In 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his ultimate significant endeavors. Known for pioneering auto-destructive art, Metzger had spent a lifetime to responding to global challenges from peace activism to ethical eating. Through a short video message, he requested support for a worldwide initiative to celebrate the natural world.

“This is my appeal for your involvement in this worldwide call for a day of action to remember nature on 4 November 2015,” he stated, encouraging artists and creatives to oppose the steady eradication of species. “Our task is to remind people of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into territories that are naturally imaginative.”

The Birth of Remember Nature

In this way Remember Nature was born, a day when artists across the country produced pieces to the unfolding climate catastrophe. One of the curators, who cared for Metzger in his last days, recalls his drive for action. “I sensed a profound sense of urgency for him at the close of his days,” she says. “I just said – let’s not mess around. Let’s not wait for financial support or for anyone to green light this. Let’s just do it.”

A Decade Later

A decade on, the project hasn’t quite sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had dreamed of, but supporters think its legacy can still be observed in campaigns like cultural advocacy groups and environmental protests, as well as in how artists approach the sustainability of their work. This is the reason she is relaunching it to mark its 10-year anniversary. Among the 18 lead artists involved this time are Cornelia Parker and prominent artists. All participants have produced imagery, shared messages, and produced installations set to be presented on 4 November 2025.

Planting Hope

In conversation with one participant, she is working outdoors in Kent, cultivating apple trees that will develop into a coiled garden. Working with schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and somewhat instructive. According to her, the preparation and sowing sessions have already involved learning about mathematics (calculating the planting intervals), genetics (studying the apple’s DNA), and origins (mapping the backgrounds of how different apples came to the UK).

Many of the apples were picked because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Bloody Butcher. We have one apple that releases crimson liquid

“A lot of the apples were picked because they’ve got amusing labels such as the other unusual varieties,” she explains. “We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ crimson liquid. They all have stories behind them. The historical cultivar was imported by the Romans. The local breed is the apple that fell from a tree and hit the scientist’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more thoughtfully connected of the environment and the power we have over it. “For a lot of them, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was urging them, when they go shopping, to look on the bag and see what they’re called and their origin. Hopefully it says Kent!”

Cultural Projects Across the Country

In London, a participant’s project on disappearance will engage visitors looking through an art institution on a mission to find the frozen formations that have been lost in recent years. Every ice sheet will be drawn on the gallery’s windows and walls using special pens. Whenever one is found, a alert will occur and a performance will be held to remember that specific ice mass.

Meanwhile, up in another location, Maddi Nicholson will be presenting a public show about our disconnection from the land, as well as hosting a shared meal, cooked from regional food. In another city, an artist is streaming her musical project, in which local singers embark on a mission to sing plants back to health in a local park.

Young Insights

Following this approach, Cornelia Parker will be collaborating with schoolchildren – on the day itself she is aiming to fill a cultural venue in kids’ letters and drawings that express their hopes and fears for the years ahead. “Children’s words and images are compelling because they’re not as inhibited as adults’,” she says in her public appeal. “The contributions of youth to the world is something quite unique and hopefully it will inspire a sense of responsibility from everyone. Kids are unbiased. They have anxieties about what’s next. But it isn’t meant to be about anxiety – it should be about positivity and our responsibility that they get a future.”

Memorials and Memory

Paul Harfleet’s work also connects with children. As a former drag queen, his feathered initiative involves sketching winged creatures and then embodying them – and for the event he is aiming to represent 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 past twenty years. This endeavor commenced following he experienced three incidents of discrimination on a single day. As a reaction, Harfleet decided to plant a pansy at the site of each occurrence and record it – the project has since grown to incorporate experiences shared by other people across the world. “The flowers remain there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “Reportedly birds consume them, so they’re a short-lived memorial.”

Harfleet chose the pansy not just for the obvious reason – it has long been a derogatory label – but also because its name derives 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 project on 4 November is to sow flowers at new locations and also replant flowers in places he has honored before, all the while talking to those on the walking tour about the incidents and his personal experiences. “I’ve recorded quite a few since I last planted,” he says sadly.

Moving Forward with Hope

He desires his work – and