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Back in 2015, artist and activist Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his ultimate important works. Famed for pioneering art that erases itself, Metzger had dedicated his life to confronting societal issues from nuclear disarmament to vegetarianism. Through a short video message, he made a plea for a worldwide initiative to honor the environment.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your involvement in this worldwide call for a day of action to reflect on the environment on November 4th, 2015,” he stated, inviting cultural workers to oppose the ongoing loss of living beings. “Our task is to make audiences aware of the diversity and intricacy in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore domains that are naturally imaginative.”

The Creation of Environmental Reflection

Thus the Nature Remembrance initiative was born, a day when creatives nationwide developed works to the unfolding climate catastrophe. An organizer, who worked closely with Metzger in his last days, remembers his feeling of immediacy. “I sensed a strong sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “I just said – we must act now. We shouldn’t hold back for funding or for anyone to authorize this. Take action immediately.”

A Decade Later

Ten years later, the initiative may not have incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had dreamed of, but Joelson believes its legacy can still be felt in initiatives 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 mark its 10-year anniversary. Among the featured creators participating now are Yu-Chen Wang and Anya Gallaccio. They have all produced imagery, recorded calls to action, and developed pieces set to be unveiled on 4 November 2025.

Planting Hope

In conversation with the artist, she is out in a field in the countryside, cultivating apple trees that will create a coiled garden. Working with schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and half educational workshop. She describes, the planning and planting sessions have already included learning about maths (spacing the planting intervals), biology (discussing the hereditary traits), and origins (tracing the journeys of how different apples came to the UK).

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

“A lot of the apples were picked because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Bloody Butcher,” says Gallaccio. “We have one apple that produces scarlet-colored sap. 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 struck Isaac Newton’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more consciously engaged of the environment and the control we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was urging them, when they go shopping, to check the packaging and see what they’re called and their origin. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Throughout Britain

In London, Youngsook Choi’s Book of Loss will involve participants searching Tate Modern on a quest to find the ice masses that have been lost in the past decade. All formations will be illustrated on the museum surfaces using invisible ink. Each discovery, a bell will ring and a reading will be performed to remember that particular glacier.

Meanwhile, up in another location, Maddi Nicholson will be hosting a public show about our alienation from the environment, as well as hosting a community dinner, made using organic, local produce. In another city, a participant is broadcasting her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which regional performers embark on a mission to sing plants back to health in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Children’s Voices

Following this approach, a featured creator will be engaging schoolchildren – on the actual event she is aiming to fill Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in kids’ letters and drawings that express their dreams and worries for the future. “Kids’ art are powerful because they’re not as restricted as adults’,” she says in her public appeal. “Young people’s input to the world is something quite unique and hopefully it will stimulate a feeling of duty from each person. Youth is pure. They have concerns for tomorrow. But this shouldn’t be about worry – it should be about optimism and us ensuring that they see a better world.”

Remembrance and Reflection

Paul Harfleet’s work also appeals to children. With a background in performance, his feathered initiative involves illustrating avians and then dressing up as them – and for the event he is planning to tackle Liverpool’s famous Liver bird. He is also staging a walking tour of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his long-term work over the last two decades. The project began when he faced several events 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 grown to include incidents reported by other people across the world. “I place the plants there but they fade quickly,” says Harfleet. “It seems birds consume them, so they’re a very temporary memorial.”

Harfleet chose the pansy not just for the clear connection – it has long been a term of homophobic abuse – but also because its name derives from the French verb, penser, to think. “It was linked to a man who is reflective, and that, of course, is a terrible thing,” he says.

The project on the event day is to place blooms at additional sites and also renew the tributes in places he has previously memorialised, all the while conversing with those on the walking tour about the occurrences and his personal experiences. “I’ve recorded quite a few following earlier installations,” he says sadly.

Advancing Positively

Harfleet hopes his work – and