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During 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger initiated one of his last significant endeavors. Recognized for introducing art that erases itself, Metzger had devoted his career to addressing human struggles from peace activism to vegetarianism. Via a concise video message, he made a plea for a international event to celebrate the natural world.

“This is my appeal for your engagement in this global appeal for a day of action to reflect on the environment on 4 November 2015,” he declared, urging artists and creatives to oppose the ongoing loss of living beings. “Our responsibility is to make audiences aware of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into domains that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Birth of Remember Nature

And so Remember Nature was established, a day when artists across the country developed works to the escalating planetary emergency. One of the curators, who cared for Metzger in his final years, remembers his sense of urgency. “He had a strong sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “I urged him – don’t delay. We shouldn’t hold back for funding or for anyone to green light this. Let’s just do it.”

Ten Years On

After ten years, Remember Nature may not have triggered the broad uprising across the arts that Metzger had envisioned, but organizers feel its legacy can still be felt in campaigns like artist-led declarations and environmental protests, as well as in how artists approach the eco-friendliness of their methods. That’s why she is restaging it to mark its decade milestone. Included in the key participants participating now are Yu-Chen Wang and prominent artists. Each has designed posters, made video appeals, and produced installations set to be revealed on November 4, 2025.

Planting Hope

When speaking to Anya Gallaccio, she is out in a field in the countryside, helping plant apple trees that will create a spiral-shaped orchard. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and half educational workshop. She describes, the planning and planting sessions have already incorporated learning about mathematics (spacing the planting intervals), science (studying the hereditary traits), and history (mapping the journeys of how different apples came to the UK).

Many of the apples were picked because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Bloody Butcher. We have one apple that releases crimson liquid

“Several the apples were chosen because they’ve got funny names such as the other unusual varieties,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that releases crimson liquid. They all have background narratives. The decio apple was introduced by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that descended from a tree and landed on the physicist’s head.”

She hoped 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 buy from a supermarket, so I was encouraging them, when they go shopping, to look on the bag and see what they’re called and their origin. Hopefully it says Kent!”

Artistic Responses Nationwide

Within the city, Youngsook Choi’s project on disappearance will involve participants exploring an art institution on a journey to find the frozen formations that have been lost in modern times. Each glacier will be depicted on the exhibition spaces using invisible ink. Each discovery, a alert will occur and a recitation will be held to remember that particular glacier.

At the same time, up in Barrow-in-Furness, an artist will be presenting a free exhibition about our disconnection from the land, as well as organizing a shared meal, made using regional food. Further north, a participant is sharing her environmental performance, in which local singers undertake a task to perform for vegetation in a green space.

Children’s Voices

Following this approach, a featured creator will be engaging schoolchildren – on the scheduled date she is planning to cover Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in youth creations that capture their hopes and fears for the tomorrow. “Children’s words and images are powerful because they’re not as trammelled as mature perspectives,” she says in her call to action video. “Young people’s input to the world is something truly special and it may provoke a feeling of duty from everyone. Youth is pure. They have anxieties about what’s next. But it isn’t meant to be about anxiety – it should be about optimism and us ensuring that they see a better world.”

Memorials and Memory

Another artist’s work also appeals to children. Drawing on past experience, his feathered initiative involves drawing birds and then performing as birds – and for the event he is intending to represent Liverpool’s famous Liver bird. He is also staging a guided walk of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his long-term work over the last two decades. This endeavor commenced following he faced several events of prejudice on a single day. As a reaction, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the spot where it happened and document it – the project has since expanded to include incidents shared by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “Reportedly wildlife enjoys them, so they’re a very temporary memorial.”

Harfleet chose the flower not just for the obvious reason – it has long been a slur – but also because its name derives from the French verb, penser, to think. “People connected it with a man who is reflective, and that, of course, is a negative trait,” he says.

The project on Remember Nature day is to plant pansies at additional sites and also renew the tributes in places he has marked earlier, all the while discussing with those on the itinerant journey about the occurrences and his recollections. “I’ve recorded quite a few after my previous work,” he says with regret.

Advancing Positively

The artist wishes his work – and