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Back in 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger initiated one of his ultimate important works. Famed for creating auto-destructive art, Metzger had devoted his career to responding to global challenges from nuclear disarmament to ethical eating. Through a short video message, he made a plea for a global day of action to celebrate the natural world.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your involvement in this worldwide call for a day of action to remember nature on the fourth of November, 2015,” he stated, encouraging artists and creatives to stand against the steady eradication of living beings. “Our responsibility is to remind people of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into territories that are inherently creative.”

The Inception of Environmental Reflection

Thus the environmental art day was born, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain produced pieces to the ongoing environmental crisis. One of the curators, who worked closely with Metzger in his final years, remembers his drive for action. “I sensed a great sense of urgency for him at the close of his days,” she says. “My advice was – let’s not mess around. No need to pause for financial support or for anyone to green light this. Let’s just do it.”

Ten Years On

Ten years later, 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 seen in movements like artist-led declarations and environmental protests, as well as in how creatives consider the eco-friendliness of their methods. That’s why she is reviving it to celebrate its ten-year mark. Part of the key participants participating now are Yu-Chen Wang and Anya Gallaccio. Each has designed posters, shared messages, and produced installations set to be presented on 4 November 2025.

Sowing Change

Interviewing the artist, she is on site in a rural area, helping plant apple trees that will create a spiral-shaped orchard. Engaging schoolchildren, her project is half artwork and half educational workshop. She describes, the planning and planting sessions have already incorporated learning about mathematics (calculating the distances between trees), genetics (discussing the apple’s DNA), and origins (researching the backgrounds of how distinct varieties arrived in Britain).

Many of the apples were selected because they’ve got funny names such as the Duck’s Bill. We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ red juice

“Several the apples were picked because they’ve got humorous titles such as the other unusual varieties,” she explains. “We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ red juice. They all have stories behind them. The historical cultivar was imported by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that dropped off a tree and landed on the physicist’s head.”

The artist aimed the children to be more consciously engaged of nature and the power 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 read the label and see their names and the source. Hopefully it says Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Nationwide

At the capital, a participant’s work about extinction will include attendees searching Tate Modern on a mission to find the seven major glaciers that have been disappeared in the past decade. All formations will be drawn on the exhibition spaces using special pens. Whenever one is found, a bell will ring and a recitation will be conducted to honor that specific ice mass.

Meanwhile, up in a northern town, an artist will be hosting a public show about our separation from nature, as well as hosting a community dinner, cooked from sustainable ingredients. In another city, Uta Kögelsberger is sharing her environmental performance, in which local singers embark on a mission to perform for vegetation in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Children’s Voices

Like Gallaccio, a featured creator will be working with schoolchildren – on the actual event she is aiming to cover Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in children’s artwork that express their aspirations and concerns for the tomorrow. “Children’s words and images are powerful because they’re not as trammelled as mature perspectives,” she says in her public appeal. “What children have to offer to the world is something quite unique and perhaps it can provoke a sense of responsibility from everyone. Kids are unbiased. They have concerns for tomorrow. But this shouldn’t be about anxiety – it should be about hope and making sure that they have a tomorrow.”

Remembrance and Reflection

Another artist’s work also resonates for children. Drawing on past experience, his avian project involves illustrating avians and then dressing up as them – and for the initiative he is planning to represent an iconic figure. He is also staging a guided walk of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his Pansy Project over the past twenty years. This endeavor started after he experienced multiple occurrences of discrimination on a single day. To counter this, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the spot where it happened and record it – the project has since spiralled to incorporate experiences shared by other people across the world. “I place the plants there but they fade quickly,” says Harfleet. “Reportedly pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a very temporary memorial.”

Harfleet chose the flower 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 reflective, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The intention on Remember Nature day is to place blooms at new locations and also refresh the memorials in places he has previously memorialised, all the while talking to those on the guided walk about the events and his memories of them. “There’s been quite a few after my previous work,” he says mournfully.

Advancing Positively

He desires his work – and