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During 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger initiated one of his ultimate important works. Famed for introducing art that erases itself, Metzger had devoted his career to addressing societal issues from anti-nuclear advocacy to plant-based living. Through a short video message, he made a plea for a international event to celebrate the natural world.

“I call upon you for your engagement in this worldwide call for a day of action to commemorate our planet on November 4th, 2015,” he stated, inviting cultural workers to oppose the steady eradication of living beings. “The mission is to make audiences aware of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into realms that are naturally imaginative.”

The Birth of Remember Nature

In this way Remember Nature was established, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain developed works to the escalating planetary emergency. Jo Joelson, who worked closely with Metzger in his last days, recalls his feeling of immediacy. “I sensed a strong sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “I urged him – let’s not mess around. Let’s not wait for financial support or for anyone to green light this. We should proceed.”

Ten Years On

After ten years, the project hasn’t quite incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but organizers feel its legacy can still be felt in campaigns like artist-led declarations and climate activism networks, as well as in how creatives consider the environmental impact of their methods. That’s why she is relaunching it to celebrate its decade milestone. Part of the key participants taking part currently are A Man Called Adam and other notable figures. Each has designed posters, made video appeals, and produced installations set to be revealed on 4 November 2025.

Planting Hope

In conversation with one participant, she is out in a field in a rural area, assisting with planting apple trees that will grow to form a circular grove. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and half educational workshop. According to her, the design and cultivation sessions have already involved learning about measurements (calculating the distances between trees), science (studying the genetic makeup), and geography (mapping the backgrounds of how distinct varieties arrived in Britain).

Several the apples were chosen because they’ve got amusing labels such as the other unusual varieties. We have one apple that produces scarcolored sap

“Many of the apples were chosen because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Duck’s Bill,” she explains. “We have one apple that releases red juice. Every one carries histories attached. The historical cultivar was introduced by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that dropped off a tree and landed on the physicist’s head.”

Gallaccio wanted the children to be more consciously engaged of the natural world and the power we have over it. “For a lot of them, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was urging them, on their next shopping trip, to read the label and see the variety and their origin. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Artistic Responses Throughout Britain

At the capital, one artist’s Book of Loss will include attendees looking through Tate Modern on a journey to find the ice masses that have been vanished in recent years. Every ice sheet will be drawn on the gallery’s windows and walls using ultraviolet markers. Whenever one is found, a bell will ring and a recitation will be conducted to commemorate that particular glacier.

Elsewhere, up in a northern town, a creative will be hosting a open display about our alienation from the environment, as well as holding a shared meal, made using organic, local produce. Further north, a participant is sharing her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which regional performers undertake a task to perform for vegetation in a green space.

Children’s Voices

Following this approach, a featured creator will be working with schoolchildren – on the actual event she is aiming to decorate Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in kids’ letters and drawings that document their dreams and worries for the tomorrow. “Kids’ art are powerful because they’re not as trammelled as adults’,” she says in her public appeal. “The contributions of youth to the world is something truly special and perhaps it can provoke a awareness of obligation from us all. Youth is pure. They have anxieties about what’s next. But let’s not make it about anxiety – it should be about optimism and making sure that they see a better world.”

Memorials and Memory

Paul Harfleet’s work also connects with children. As a former drag queen, his avian project involves sketching winged creatures and then performing as birds – and for Remember Nature day he is aiming to address Liverpool’s famous Liver bird. He is also organizing a guided walk of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his Pansy Project over the recent decades. That ongoing series began when he experienced three incidents of prejudice on a single day. To counter this, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the location of every incident and photograph it – the project has since expanded to include incidents shared by other people across the world. “The flowers remain there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “Apparently birds consume them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

He picked the bloom not just for the clear connection – it has long been a term of homophobic abuse – 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 terrible thing,” he says.

The plan on 4 November is to plant pansies at fresh spots and also refresh the memorials in places he has honored before, all the while talking to those on the itinerant journey about the events and his personal experiences. “We’ve seen quite a few following earlier installations,” he says mournfully.

Advancing Positively

The artist wishes his work – and