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In 2015, artist and activist Gustav Metzger initiated one of his last significant endeavors. Known for creating auto-destructive art, Metzger had dedicated his life to responding to global challenges from anti-nuclear advocacy to vegetarianism. Through a short video message, he issued a call for a worldwide initiative to celebrate the natural world.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your participation in this worldwide call for a day of action to remember nature on November 4th, 2015,” he declared, inviting cultural workers to resist the continuing disappearance of species. “Our responsibility is to remind people of the diversity and intricacy 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 established, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain created responses to the ongoing environmental crisis. An organizer, who cared for Metzger in his final years, remembers his feeling of immediacy. “I sensed a great sense of urgency for him at the close of his days,” she says. “I just said – we must act now. No need to pause for financial support or for anyone to green light this. Let’s just do it.”

After Ten Years

After ten years, the initiative may not have incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but Joelson believes its legacy can still be observed in initiatives like artist-led declarations and climate activism networks, as well as in how artists approach the eco-friendliness of their methods. For this purpose she is restaging it to commemorate its 10-year anniversary. Among the key participants participating now are Yu-Chen Wang and other notable figures. All participants have created visual art, shared messages, and developed pieces set to be presented on November 4, 2025.

Sowing Change

In conversation with Anya Gallaccio, she is out in a field in Kent, cultivating apple trees that will create a circular grove. Engaging schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and half educational workshop. As she explains, the design and cultivation sessions have already involved learning about maths (spacing the gaps in the orchard), biology (discussing the hereditary traits), and geography (researching the stories of how various cultivars were introduced to England).

A lot of the apples were selected because they’ve got humorous titles such as the other unusual varieties. We have one apple that releases crimson liquid

“Many of the apples were picked because they’ve got humorous titles such as the other unusual varieties,” she explains. “We have one apple that releases crimson liquid. Each has background narratives. The historical cultivar was brought over by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that dropped off a tree and struck the scientist’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more consciously engaged of the natural world and the control we have over it. “To many of them, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was urging them, on their next shopping trip, to check the packaging and see what they’re called and where they were grown. Hopefully it says Kent!”

Cultural Projects Throughout Britain

In London, Youngsook Choi’s project on disappearance will engage visitors looking through an art institution on a journey to find the frozen formations that have been disappeared in the past decade. All formations will be depicted on the gallery’s windows and walls using invisible ink. When located, a alert will occur and a performance will be performed to commemorate that particular glacier.

Elsewhere, up in a northern town, Maddi Nicholson will be hosting a free exhibition about our separation from nature, as well as holding a communal feast, made using regional food. In another city, Uta Kögelsberger is streaming her environmental performance, in which community vocalists begin a project to use music to heal flora in a local park.

Children’s Voices

Like Gallaccio, a featured creator will be working with schoolchildren – on the actual event she is hoping to fill a cultural venue in youth creations that document their dreams and worries for the future. “Youthful expressions are compelling because they’re not as inhibited as adults’,” she says in her public appeal. “What children have to offer to the world is something quite unique and it may stimulate a sense of responsibility from each person. Kids are unbiased. They have anxieties about what’s next. But it isn’t meant to be about worry – it should be about hope and our responsibility that they see a better world.”

Tributes and Thoughts

A participant’s work also appeals to children. With a background in performance, his feathered initiative involves drawing birds and then performing as birds – and for the initiative he is planning to tackle Liverpool’s famous Liver bird. He is also staging a itinerant journey of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his ongoing series over the last two decades. This endeavor began when he endured multiple occurrences of homophobic abuse on a one occasion. In response, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the site of each occurrence and record it – the project has since grown to incorporate experiences shared by other people across the world. “I place the plants there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “Apparently pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a very temporary memorial.”

The artist selected the bloom not just for the direct association – 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 bad quality,” he says.

The plan on the event day is to sow flowers at new locations and also refresh the memorials in places he has previously memorialised, all the while conversing with those on the guided walk about the incidents and his recollections. “We’ve seen quite a few following earlier installations,” he says with regret.

Moving Forward with Hope

The artist wishes his work – and