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In 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger initiated one of his last major projects. Recognized for pioneering auto-destructive art, Metzger had spent a lifetime to responding to global challenges from anti-nuclear advocacy to ethical eating. Through a short video message, he requested support for a worldwide initiative to honor the environment.

“I call upon you for your participation in this international summons for a day of action to reflect on the environment on 4 November 2015,” he declared, encouraging makers and thinkers to stand against the steady eradication of flora and fauna. “Our task is to make audiences aware of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore realms that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Birth of Nature Remembrance

And so the environmental art day was born, a day when artists across the country developed works to the unfolding climate catastrophe. One of the curators, who cared for Metzger in his later life, recalls his feeling of immediacy. “There was a strong sense of urgency for him at the close of his days,” she says. “I just said – we must act now. We shouldn’t hold back for funding or for anyone to authorize this. We should proceed.”

Ten Years On

Ten years later, the initiative hasn’t quite sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but supporters think its legacy can still be observed in initiatives like artist-led declarations and environmental protests, as well as in how artists approach the eco-friendliness of their work. For this purpose she is relaunching it to mark its ten-year mark. Included in the featured creators taking part currently are Cornelia Parker and prominent artists. All participants have designed posters, shared messages, and created artworks set to be unveiled on the fourth of November next year.

Cultivating Awareness

In conversation with the artist, she is out in a field in the countryside, assisting with planting apple trees that will grow to form a circular grove. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is part creative piece and half educational workshop. She describes, the design and cultivation sessions have already incorporated learning about mathematics (spacing the distances between trees), science (studying the hereditary traits), and history (mapping the journeys of how distinct varieties came to the UK).

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

“Many of the apples were picked because they’ve got amusing labels such as the other unusual varieties,” says Gallaccio. “We have one apple that produces crimson liquid. Each has stories behind them. The historical cultivar was brought over by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that dropped off a tree and hit Isaac Newton’s head.”

The artist aimed the children to be more thoughtfully connected of the natural world and the influence we have over it. “For a lot of them, apples were just things you buy from a supermarket, so I was urging them, next time they were out, to look on the bag and see the variety and where they were grown. Hopefully it says Kent!”

Cultural Projects Nationwide

In London, Youngsook Choi’s work about extinction will engage visitors looking through a major gallery on a mission to find the ice masses that have been disappeared in recent years. Every ice sheet will be depicted on the gallery’s windows and walls using special pens. Each discovery, a chime will sound and a performance will be performed to commemorate that particular glacier.

Elsewhere, up in another location, an artist will be presenting a free exhibition about our alienation from the environment, as well as holding a shared meal, prepared with regional food. Over in Newcastle, a participant is broadcasting her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which local singers undertake a task to sing plants back to health in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Young Insights

Like Gallaccio, a featured creator will be working with schoolchildren – on the actual event she is hoping to decorate Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in kids’ letters and drawings that document their aspirations and concerns for the years ahead. “Kids’ art are powerful because they’re not as restricted as adults’,” she says in her public appeal. “What children have to offer to the world is something distinctive and perhaps it can inspire a awareness of obligation from everyone. Kids are unbiased. They have anxieties about what’s next. But let’s not make it about worry – it should be about positivity and us ensuring that they see a better world.”

Memorials and Memory

Another artist’s work also resonates for children. With a background in performance, his feathered initiative involves illustrating avians and then dressing up as them – and for the initiative he is aiming to address an iconic figure. He is also organizing a itinerant journey of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his ongoing series over the last two decades. The project began when he faced several events of discrimination on a one occasion. As a reaction, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the spot where it happened and photograph it – the project has since grown to cover events experienced by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “It seems birds consume them, so they’re a very temporary memorial.”

The artist selected the pansy not just for the clear connection – it has long been a derogatory label – but also because its etymology comes from 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 plan on Remember Nature day is to plant pansies at additional sites and also replant flowers in places he has honored before, all the while talking to those on the walking tour about the events and his recollections. “I’ve recorded quite a few since I last planted,” he says with regret.

Progressing Optimistically

Harfleet hopes his work – and