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Back in 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger launched one of his last major projects. Known for pioneering 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 issued a call for a worldwide initiative to celebrate the natural world.

“I call upon you for your involvement in this global appeal for a day of action to remember nature on 4 November 2015,” he declared, urging makers and thinkers to oppose the continuing disappearance of flora and fauna. “Our responsibility is to make audiences aware of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so art will enter territories that are naturally imaginative.”

The Birth of Nature Remembrance

And so the Nature Remembrance initiative came into being, a day when creatives nationwide created responses to the escalating planetary emergency. An organizer, who supported Metzger in his later life, remembers his drive for action. “There was a great sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “I urged him – don’t delay. We shouldn’t hold back for funding or for anyone to green light this. We should proceed.”

A Decade Later

Ten years later, the initiative hasn’t quite sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had dreamed of, but supporters think its influence can still be observed in campaigns like artist-led declarations and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how artists approach the environmental impact of their work. For this purpose she is reviving it to commemorate its ten-year mark. Part of the 18 lead artists involved this time are Cornelia Parker and other notable figures. Each has designed posters, made video appeals, and created artworks set to be revealed on the fourth of November next year.

Sowing Change

In conversation with one participant, 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 part learning experience. As she explains, the design and cultivation sessions have already involved learning about mathematics (measuring out the planting intervals), genetics (exploring the hereditary traits), and history (tracing the journeys of how various cultivars were introduced to England).

Several the apples were selected because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Duck’s Bill. We have one apple that produces scarcolored sap

“Several the apples were picked because they’ve got funny names such as the other unusual varieties,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that releases scarlet-colored sap. Each has stories behind them. The historical cultivar was introduced by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that fell from a tree and landed on Isaac Newton’s head.”

The artist aimed the children to be more consciously engaged of nature and the influence we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you buy from a supermarket, so I was prompting them, on their next shopping trip, to look on the bag and see what they’re called and where they were grown. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Cultural Projects Throughout Britain

At the capital, a participant’s Book of Loss will involve participants searching an art institution on a mission to find the seven major glaciers that have been disappeared in the past decade. Each glacier will be depicted on the museum surfaces using special pens. Each discovery, a alert will occur and a performance will be held to commemorate that individual formation.

Elsewhere, up in a northern town, a creative will be hosting a free exhibition about our separation from nature, as well as organizing a community dinner, prepared with sustainable ingredients. Over in Newcastle, a participant is streaming her musical project, in which regional performers begin a project to use music to heal flora in a local park.

Children’s Voices

Similar to other artists, a featured creator will be working with schoolchildren – on the scheduled date she is aiming to decorate Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in youth creations that capture their aspirations and concerns for the years ahead. “Youthful expressions are powerful because they’re not as trammelled as adults’,” she says in her recorded message. “Young people’s input to the world is something distinctive and hopefully it will provoke a feeling of duty from everyone. Children are innocent. They have anxieties about what’s next. But it isn’t meant to be about anxiety – it should be about positivity and making sure that they get a future.”

Memorials and Memory

A participant’s work also appeals to children. Drawing on past experience, his feathered initiative involves drawing birds and then dressing up as them – and for the initiative he is aiming to address a local symbol. He is also organizing a guided walk of the city, stopping at places that have been part of his Pansy Project over the last two decades. That ongoing series commenced following he faced multiple occurrences of homophobic abuse on a single day. In response, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the location of every incident and record it – the project has since spiralled to cover events experienced by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they fade quickly,” says Harfleet. “Reportedly birds consume them, so they’re a very temporary memorial.”

Harfleet chose the flower not just for the obvious reason – it has long been a derogatory label – 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 bad quality,” he says.

The project on 4 November is to plant pansies at fresh spots and also refresh the memorials in places he has marked earlier, all the while conversing with those on the walking tour about the events and his recollections. “We’ve seen quite a few after my previous work,” he says sadly.

Advancing Positively

He desires his work – and