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Back in 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger initiated one of his final significant endeavors. Recognized for pioneering auto-destructive art, Metzger had spent a lifetime to addressing global challenges from anti-nuclear advocacy to vegetarianism. Through a short video message, he requested support for a worldwide initiative to honor the environment.

“This is my appeal for your engagement in this global appeal for a day of action to commemorate our planet on November 4th, 2015,” he declared, inviting cultural workers to oppose the ongoing loss of species. “Our task is to remind people of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so art will enter territories that are naturally imaginative.”

The Birth of Remember Nature

And so the environmental art day came into being, a day when creatives nationwide produced pieces to the unfolding climate catastrophe. An organizer, who cared for Metzger in his final years, remembers his sense of urgency. “He had a profound sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “My advice was – don’t delay. We shouldn’t hold back for sponsorship or for anyone to green light this. Let’s just do it.”

A Decade Later

After ten years, the initiative hasn’t quite sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had envisioned, but Joelson believes its impact can still be seen in initiatives like Culture Declares and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how makers handle the environmental impact of their practices. This is the reason she is restaging it to mark its ten-year mark. Part of the 18 lead artists taking part currently are Yu-Chen Wang and other notable figures. They have all created visual art, recorded calls to action, and produced installations set to be revealed on 4 November 2025.

Planting Hope

When speaking to Anya Gallaccio, she is out in a field in Kent, assisting with planting apple trees that will grow to form a coiled garden. Engaging schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and part learning experience. According to her, the preparation and sowing sessions have already included learning about maths (measuring out the gaps in the orchard), genetics (exploring the genetic makeup), and history (researching the backgrounds of how various cultivars arrived in Britain).

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

“A lot of the apples were selected because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Duck’s Bill,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that releases scarlet-colored sap. They all have stories behind them. The ancient variety was brought over by the Romans. The local breed is the apple that descended from a tree and landed on the physicist’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more actively aware of the environment and the control we have over it. “For a lot of them, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was encouraging them, when they go shopping, to check the packaging and see their names and their origin. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Cultural Projects Throughout Britain

At the capital, one artist’s work about extinction will involve participants looking through an art institution on a journey to find the ice masses that have been vanished in modern times. Each glacier will be drawn on the exhibition spaces using special pens. Each discovery, a bell will ring and a reading will be performed to honor that specific ice mass.

Elsewhere, up in a northern town, an artist will be hosting a free exhibition about our alienation from the environment, as well as hosting a communal feast, prepared with sustainable ingredients. In another city, a participant is streaming her musical project, in which community vocalists begin a project to perform for vegetation in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Children’s Voices

Similar to other artists, a featured creator will be engaging schoolchildren – on the day itself she is aiming to fill an art space in kids’ letters and drawings that express their dreams and worries for the tomorrow. “Youthful expressions are impactful because they’re not as restricted as grown-ups’,” she says in her call to action video. “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 this shouldn’t be about worry – it should be about optimism and making sure that they have a tomorrow.”

Memorials and Memory

A participant’s work also appeals to children. Drawing on past experience, his avian project involves drawing birds and then performing as birds – and for the initiative he is planning to tackle an iconic figure. He is also conducting a walking tour of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his long-term work over the past twenty years. This endeavor commenced following he experienced several events of discrimination on a particular day. As a reaction, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the site of each occurrence and document it – the project has since grown to cover events shared by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they fade quickly,” says Harfleet. “Apparently pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

The artist selected the pansy not just for the clear connection – it has long been a slur – but also because its name derives from the French verb, penser, to think. “It became associated with a man who is thoughtful, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The plan on the event day is to place blooms at fresh spots and also refresh the memorials in places he has previously memorialised, all the while talking to those on the walking tour about the occurrences and his memories of them. “There’s been quite a few after my previous work,” he says with regret.

Progressing Optimistically

The artist wishes his work – and