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In 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his final important works. Famed for creating auto-destructive art, Metzger had spent a lifetime to confronting human struggles from nuclear disarmament to vegetarianism. Via a concise video message, he requested support for a international event to honor the environment.

“This is my appeal for your involvement in this worldwide call for a day of action to commemorate our planet on 4 November 2015,” he stated, urging makers and thinkers to oppose the continuing disappearance of species. “Our responsibility is to help the public recall of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so art will enter territories that are naturally imaginative.”

The Inception of Remember Nature

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 cared for Metzger in his final years, remembers his drive for action. “He had 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 financial support or for anyone to authorize this. Let’s just do it.”

Ten Years On

After ten years, the initiative hasn’t quite triggered the broad uprising across the arts that Metzger had envisioned, but Joelson believes its influence can still be felt in initiatives like Culture Declares and climate activism networks, as well as in how makers handle the environmental impact of their methods. That’s why she is restaging it to celebrate its ten-year mark. Included in the featured creators participating now are Yu-Chen Wang and other notable figures. They have all produced imagery, shared messages, and developed pieces set to be revealed on November 4, 2025.

Cultivating Awareness

When speaking to Anya Gallaccio, she is working outdoors in a rural area, assisting with planting apple trees that will grow to form a spiral-shaped orchard. Engaging schoolchildren, her project is half artwork and somewhat instructive. She describes, the preparation and sowing sessions have already included learning about measurements (measuring out the planting intervals), biology (exploring the apple’s DNA), and origins (mapping the backgrounds of how different apples arrived in Britain).

Several the apples were selected because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Duck’s Bill. We have one apple that releases crimson liquid

“Many of the apples were chosen because they’ve got humorous titles such as the other unusual varieties,” says Gallaccio. “We have one apple that produces red juice. Each has stories behind them. The decio apple was brought over by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that dropped off a tree and landed on Isaac Newton’s head.”

Gallaccio wanted the children to be more consciously engaged of the environment and the influence we have over it. “To many of them, apples were just things you get at a supermarket, so I was urging them, when they go shopping, to check the packaging and see their names and where they were grown. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Artistic Responses Throughout Britain

Within the city, one artist’s work about extinction will include attendees looking through an art institution on a mission to find the seven major glaciers that have been lost in the past decade. Each glacier will be drawn on the museum surfaces using invisible ink. Each discovery, a bell will ring and a recitation will be held to commemorate that specific ice mass.

At the same time, up in a northern town, an artist will be putting on a open display about our alienation from the environment, as well as hosting a shared meal, prepared with regional food. Over in Newcastle, Uta Kögelsberger is sharing her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which local singers begin a project to use music to heal flora in a local park.

Young Insights

Following this approach, another participant will be working with schoolchildren – on the day itself she is hoping to cover an art space in youth creations that document their dreams and worries for the tomorrow. “Children’s words and images are compelling because they’re not as restricted as grown-ups’,” she says in her call to action video. “The contributions of youth to the world is something distinctive and it may inspire a feeling of duty from each person. Youth is pure. They have anxieties about what’s next. But it isn’t meant to be about worry – it should be about positivity and our responsibility that they see a better world.”

Remembrance and Reflection

Another artist’s work also connects with children. Drawing on past experience, his feathered initiative involves illustrating avians and then performing as birds – and for the event he is planning to address an iconic figure. He is also staging a walking tour of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his Pansy Project over the last two decades. That ongoing series began when he endured three incidents of prejudice on a single day. To counter this, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the spot where it happened and photograph it – the project has since grown to cover events shared 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 ephemeral memorial.”

Harfleet chose the bloom not just for the clear connection – it has long been a slur – but also because its etymology comes from the French verb, penser, to think. “It was linked to a man who is contemplative, and that, of course, is a terrible thing,” he says.

The intention on 4 November is to plant pansies at fresh spots and also refresh the memorials in places he has previously memorialised, all the while talking to those on the itinerant journey about the events and his recollections. “There’s been quite a few after my previous work,” he says with regret.

Moving Forward with Hope

Harfleet hopes his work – and