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Back in 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger launched one of his final significant endeavors. Known for introducing auto-destructive art, Metzger had devoted his career to confronting global challenges from anti-nuclear advocacy to plant-based living. Through a short video message, he requested support for a international event to celebrate the natural world.

“I call upon you for your involvement in this worldwide call for a day of action to remember nature on the fourth of November, 2015,” he stated, inviting artists and creatives to oppose the steady eradication of living beings. “The mission is to help the public recall of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore domains that are naturally imaginative.”

The Inception of Environmental Reflection

And so the Nature Remembrance initiative came into being, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain produced pieces to the ongoing environmental crisis. Jo Joelson, who cared for Metzger in his last days, remembers his sense of urgency. “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. No need to pause for funding or for anyone to green light this. We should proceed.”

After Ten Years

Ten years later, the initiative did not sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but Joelson believes its impact can still be seen in initiatives like Culture Declares and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how makers handle the environmental impact of their work. That’s why she is restaging it to celebrate its ten-year mark. Included in the 18 lead artists taking part currently are Yu-Chen Wang and other notable figures. All participants have designed posters, shared messages, and developed pieces set to be unveiled on 4 November 2025.

Cultivating Awareness

Interviewing Anya Gallaccio, she is on site in Kent, helping plant apple trees that will create a circular grove. Engaging schoolchildren, her project is half artwork and half educational workshop. She describes, the planning and planting sessions have already involved learning about maths (calculating the distances between trees), genetics (exploring the genetic makeup), and geography (mapping the stories of how various cultivars arrived in Britain).

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

“A lot of the apples were selected because they’ve got funny names such as the other unusual varieties,” she explains. “We have one apple that produces red juice. Every one carries histories attached. The ancient variety was brought over by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that descended from a tree and struck Isaac Newton’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 get at a supermarket, so I was encouraging them, next time they were out, to check the packaging and see what they’re called and where they were grown. Hopefully it says Kent!”

Cultural Projects Across the Country

In London, a participant’s Book of Loss will involve participants looking through an art institution on a quest to find the frozen formations that have been vanished in recent years. Each glacier will be drawn on the gallery’s windows and walls using invisible ink. When located, a bell will ring and a reading will be held to commemorate that particular glacier.

At the same time, up in Barrow-in-Furness, Maddi Nicholson will be putting on a free exhibition about our alienation from the environment, as well as holding a communal feast, made using regional food. In another city, Uta Kögelsberger is streaming her environmental performance, in which local singers embark on a mission to use music to heal flora in a local park.

Young Insights

Like Gallaccio, a featured creator will be engaging schoolchildren – on the actual event she is hoping to cover Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in youth creations that express their aspirations and concerns for the future. “Children’s words and images are powerful because they’re not as trammelled as adults’,” she says in her public appeal. “Young people’s input to the world is something truly special and hopefully it will provoke a sense of responsibility from everyone. Children are innocent. They have fears about the future. But this shouldn’t be about fear – it should be about hope and making sure that they see a better world.”

Tributes and Thoughts

Paul Harfleet’s work also resonates for children. Drawing on past experience, his feathered initiative involves drawing birds and then embodying them – and for the initiative he is planning 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 past twenty years. The project started after he faced three incidents of homophobic abuse on a particular day. In response, Harfleet decided to plant a pansy at the site of each occurrence and photograph it – the project has since expanded to cover events shared by other people across the world. “I place the plants there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “Reportedly birds consume them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

He picked the flower not just for the clear connection – it has long been a derogatory label – but also because its origin is the French verb, penser, to think. “It became associated with a man who is contemplative, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The intention on the event day is to place blooms at additional sites and also renew the tributes in places he has honored before, all the while conversing with those on the guided walk about the occurrences and his memories of them. “We’ve seen quite a few after my previous work,” he says sadly.

Moving Forward with Hope

Harfleet hopes his work – and