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Back in 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his final major projects. Famed for introducing self-destructive creations, Metzger had spent a lifetime to addressing human struggles from anti-nuclear advocacy to ethical eating. In a brief video message, he issued a call for a worldwide initiative to remember nature.

“I call upon you for your involvement in this global appeal for a day of action to reflect on the environment on the fourth of November, 2015,” he declared, urging cultural workers to oppose the continuing disappearance of species. “Our task is to remind people of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into territories that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Creation of Nature Remembrance

In this way the environmental art day came into being, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain created responses to the escalating planetary emergency. One of the curators, who worked closely with Metzger in his last days, remembers his drive for action. “I sensed a profound sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “My advice was – let’s not mess around. No need to pause for sponsorship or for anyone to authorize this. Take action immediately.”

Ten Years On

After ten years, the initiative hasn’t quite incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had envisioned, but organizers feel its influence can still be observed in movements like artist-led declarations and climate activism networks, as well as in how makers handle the eco-friendliness of their practices. That’s why she is restaging it to commemorate its decade milestone. Included in the 18 lead artists involved this time are Cornelia Parker and other notable figures. Each has created visual art, recorded calls to action, and produced installations set to be revealed on the fourth of November next year.

Sowing Change

When speaking to the artist, she is on site in the countryside, assisting with planting apple trees that will create a coiled garden. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and somewhat instructive. As she explains, the planning and planting sessions have already incorporated learning about maths (spacing the gaps in the orchard), biology (studying the apple’s DNA), and origins (researching the stories of how various cultivars arrived in Britain).

A lot of the apples were selected because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Bloody Butcher. We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ scarcolored sap

“Many of the apples were selected because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Duck’s Bill,” says Gallaccio. “We have one apple that produces red juice. They all have stories behind them. The historical cultivar was introduced by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that descended from a tree and hit the physicist’s head.”

Gallaccio wanted 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 get at a supermarket, so I was prompting them, on their next shopping trip, to read the label and see the variety and their origin. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Across the Country

In London, one artist’s work about extinction will include attendees exploring Tate Modern on a journey to find the frozen formations that have been lost in recent years. Every ice sheet will be drawn on the museum surfaces using ultraviolet markers. When located, a bell will ring and a recitation will be held to remember that individual formation.

Elsewhere, up in a northern town, an artist will be putting on 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 sharing her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which community vocalists begin a project to use music to heal flora in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

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 children’s artwork that express their aspirations and concerns for the years ahead. “Youthful expressions are powerful because they’re not as restricted as grown-ups’,” she says in her call to action video. “What children have to offer to the world is something truly special and perhaps it can stimulate a feeling of duty from each person. Children are innocent. They have anxieties about what’s next. But let’s not make it about anxiety – it should be about hope and our responsibility that they get a future.”

Memorials and Memory

Paul Harfleet’s work also appeals to children. Drawing on past experience, his feathered initiative involves sketching winged creatures and then embodying them – and for the event he is aiming to tackle a local symbol. He is also staging a guided walk of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his Pansy Project over the last two decades. This endeavor began when he experienced three incidents of prejudice on a particular day. In response, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the spot where it happened and photograph it – the project has since expanded to include incidents shared by other people across the world. “I place the plants there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “Apparently wildlife enjoys them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

Harfleet chose 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. “People connected it with a man who is reflective, and that, of course, is a negative trait,” he says.

The plan on 4 November is to sow flowers at fresh spots and also renew the tributes in places he has previously memorialised, all the while discussing with those on the itinerant journey about the events and his recollections. “I’ve recorded quite a few after my previous work,” he says sadly.

Moving Forward with Hope

He desires his work – and