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Back in 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger initiated one of his final significant endeavors. Known for creating art that erases itself, Metzger had devoted his career to confronting human struggles from anti-nuclear advocacy to vegetarianism. In a brief video message, he requested support for a international event to celebrate the natural world.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your engagement in this global appeal for a day of action to commemorate our planet on the fourth of November, 2015,” he declared, encouraging cultural workers to stand against the ongoing loss of flora and fauna. “Our responsibility is to make audiences aware of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so art will enter territories that are inherently creative.”

The Inception of Environmental Reflection

And so Remember Nature came into being, a day when artists across the country developed works to the escalating planetary emergency. Jo Joelson, who cared for Metzger in his later life, notes his feeling of immediacy. “He had a strong sense of urgency for him at the close of his days,” she says. “My advice was – don’t delay. Let’s not wait for financial support or for anyone to approve this. We should proceed.”

A Decade Later

After ten years, the initiative did not incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had dreamed of, but organizers feel its legacy can still be observed in movements like Culture Declares and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how makers handle the eco-friendliness of their work. This is the reason she is relaunching it to mark its ten-year mark. Part of the key participants taking part currently are Yu-Chen Wang and other notable figures. Each has created visual art, shared messages, and created artworks set to be revealed on 4 November 2025.

Planting Hope

Interviewing the artist, she is on site in Kent, assisting with planting apple trees that will grow to form a spiral-shaped orchard. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is half artwork and half educational workshop. As she explains, the planning and planting sessions have already included learning about maths (spacing the gaps in the orchard), science (discussing the genetic makeup), and origins (mapping the backgrounds of how different apples arrived in Britain).

Several the apples were picked because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Duck’s Bill. We have one apple that produces crimson liquid

“A lot of the apples were picked because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Bloody Butcher,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that produces scarlet-colored sap. Each has histories attached. The decio apple was imported by the Romans. The local breed is the apple that fell from a tree and struck Isaac Newton’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more consciously engaged of nature and the power we have over it. “To many of them, apples were just things you buy from a supermarket, so I was urging them, on their next shopping trip, to look on the bag and see what they’re called and the source. Hopefully it says Kent!”

Artistic Responses Throughout Britain

In London, one artist’s work about extinction will engage visitors searching Tate Modern on a mission to find the ice masses that have been vanished in modern times. All formations will be illustrated on the museum surfaces using invisible ink. Each discovery, a alert will occur and a reading will be held to honor that specific ice mass.

Elsewhere, up in another location, a creative will be presenting a free exhibition about our separation from nature, as well as holding a shared meal, prepared with organic, local produce. Over in Newcastle, an artist is streaming her environmental performance, in which community vocalists begin a project to use music to heal flora in a green space.

Young Insights

Like Gallaccio, a featured creator will be engaging schoolchildren – on the day itself she is hoping to cover Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in children’s artwork that document their aspirations and concerns for the years ahead. “Children’s words and images are impactful because they’re not as restricted as mature perspectives,” she says in her recorded message. “Young people’s input to the world is something quite unique and hopefully it will provoke 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 hope and our responsibility that they have a tomorrow.”

Memorials and Memory

A participant’s work also appeals to children. With a background in performance, his Birds Can Fly involves drawing birds and then performing as birds – and for the event he is planning to address an iconic figure. He is also organizing a guided walk of the city, stopping at places that have been part of his Pansy Project over the last two decades. That ongoing series began when he endured multiple occurrences of homophobic abuse on a particular day. To counter this, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the location of every incident and record it – the project has since expanded to cover events reported by other people across the world. “I place the plants there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “It seems birds consume them, so they’re a very temporary memorial.”

Harfleet chose the pansy not just for the obvious reason – it has long been a term of homophobic abuse – but also because its origin is the French verb, penser, to think. “It was linked to a man who is reflective, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The intention on Remember Nature day is to plant pansies at additional sites and also refresh the memorials in places he has honored before, all the while talking to those on the guided walk about the occurrences and his recollections. “There’s been quite a few since I last planted,” he says mournfully.

Moving Forward with Hope

The artist wishes his work – and