🔗 Share this article

Back in 2015, artist and activist Gustav Metzger initiated one of his last significant endeavors. Known for creating auto-destructive art, Metzger had devoted his career to addressing human struggles from peace activism to plant-based living. Through a short video message, he issued a call for a international event to celebrate the natural world.

“I call upon you for your participation in this international summons for a day of action to remember nature on the fourth of November, 2015,” he stated, encouraging cultural workers to resist the ongoing loss of flora and fauna. “The mission is to help the public recall of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore territories that are inherently creative.”

The Creation of Nature Remembrance

Thus the environmental art day was born, a day when creatives nationwide developed works to the escalating planetary emergency. An organizer, who cared for Metzger in his final years, notes his drive for action. “I sensed a profound sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “I just said – let’s not mess around. We shouldn’t hold back for financial support or for anyone to authorize this. We should proceed.”

After Ten Years

Ten years later, the initiative hasn’t quite incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but organizers feel its influence can still be seen in initiatives like cultural advocacy groups and environmental protests, as well as in how artists approach the eco-friendliness of their practices. That’s why she is reviving it to commemorate its ten-year mark. Among the key participants participating now are Yu-Chen Wang and prominent artists. Each has designed posters, made video appeals, and developed pieces set to be presented on the fourth of November next year.

Cultivating Awareness

Interviewing Anya Gallaccio, she is working outdoors in the countryside, assisting with planting apple trees that will create a coiled garden. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is part creative piece and half educational workshop. She describes, the design and cultivation sessions have already incorporated learning about measurements (calculating the planting intervals), science (exploring the apple’s DNA), and geography (researching the journeys of how different apples were introduced to England).

Several the apples were selected 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 picked because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Duck’s Bill,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that produces red juice. Each has background narratives. The ancient variety was brought over by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that descended from a tree and landed on Isaac Newton’s head.”

Gallaccio wanted the children to be more thoughtfully connected of the natural world and the power we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you get at a supermarket, so I was encouraging them, next time they were out, to look on the bag and see the variety and the source. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Across the Country

In London, a participant’s work about extinction will engage visitors searching a major gallery on a mission to find the frozen formations that have been lost in modern times. Every ice sheet will be drawn on the exhibition spaces using special pens. Whenever one is found, a alert will occur and a recitation will be performed to remember that specific ice mass.

Elsewhere, up in another location, an artist will be presenting a public show about our disconnection from the land, as well as hosting a shared meal, cooked from organic, local produce. Over in Newcastle, an artist is streaming her environmental performance, in which regional performers begin a project to perform for vegetation in a green space.

Young Insights

Similar to other artists, Cornelia Parker will be engaging schoolchildren – on the actual event she is planning to cover Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in youth creations that capture their dreams and worries for the tomorrow. “Children’s words and images are compelling because they’re not as trammelled as mature perspectives,” she says in her recorded message. “What children have to offer to the world is something quite unique and it may stimulate a sense of responsibility from everyone. Youth is pure. They have anxieties about what’s next. But this shouldn’t be about anxiety – it should be about hope and us ensuring that they have a tomorrow.”

Memorials and Memory

A participant’s work also appeals to children. With a background in performance, his Birds Can Fly involves drawing birds and then dressing up as them – and for Remember Nature day he is planning to tackle Liverpool’s famous Liver bird. He is also staging a guided walk of the city, stopping at places that have been part of his Pansy Project over the last two decades. The project commenced following he experienced three incidents of homophobic abuse on a one occasion. To counter this, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the site of each occurrence and record it – the project has since spiralled to cover events shared by other people across the world. “The flowers remain there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “It seems pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

The artist selected the bloom not just for the direct association – it has long been a derogatory label – but also because its etymology comes 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 intention on 4 November is to sow flowers at additional sites and also replant flowers in places he has previously memorialised, all the while talking to those on the walking tour about the events and his recollections. “We’ve seen quite a few after my previous work,” he says mournfully.

Advancing Positively

Harfleet hopes his work – and