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Back in 2015, artist and activist Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his last significant endeavors. Known for introducing art that erases itself, Metzger had devoted his career to responding to societal issues from nuclear disarmament to plant-based living. In a brief video message, he issued a call for a global day of action to celebrate the natural world.

“I call upon you for your participation in this worldwide call for a day of action to reflect on the environment on November 4th, 2015,” he declared, encouraging artists and creatives to oppose the continuing disappearance of flora and fauna. “Our task is to help the public recall of the diversity and intricacy in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore domains that are inherently creative.”

The Birth of Environmental Reflection

And so the environmental art day was born, a day when creatives nationwide created responses to the unfolding climate catastrophe. One of the curators, who worked closely with Metzger in his final years, notes his feeling of immediacy. “There was a profound sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “I just said – let’s not mess around. No need to pause for funding or for anyone to authorize this. Take action immediately.”

After Ten Years

After ten years, the initiative did not incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but Joelson believes its legacy can still be felt in initiatives like cultural advocacy groups and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how makers handle the sustainability of their methods. For this purpose she is restaging it to mark its ten-year mark. Among the 18 lead artists participating now are Yu-Chen Wang and Anya Gallaccio. All participants have produced imagery, made video appeals, and produced installations set to be revealed on the fourth of November next year.

Planting Hope

When speaking to one participant, she is out in a field in the countryside, cultivating apple trees that will create a circular grove. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and somewhat instructive. As she explains, the planning and planting sessions have already incorporated learning about measurements (calculating the gaps in the orchard), science (studying the apple’s DNA), and origins (tracing the journeys of how distinct varieties arrived in Britain).

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

“Many of the apples were picked because they’ve got funny names such as the other unusual varieties,” she explains. “We have one apple that releases red juice. Each has background narratives. The decio apple was introduced by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that fell from a tree and struck the physicist’s head.”

Gallaccio wanted the children to be more consciously engaged of the natural world and the power 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 check the packaging and see the variety and where they were grown. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Cultural Projects Throughout Britain

At the capital, a participant’s Book of Loss will involve participants searching Tate Modern on a mission to find the seven major glaciers that have been vanished in modern times. All formations will be drawn on the exhibition spaces using invisible ink. Whenever one is found, a alert will occur and a recitation will be conducted to remember that specific ice mass.

Elsewhere, up in another location, a creative will be hosting a open display about our alienation from the environment, as well as hosting a communal feast, made using organic, local produce. In another city, an artist is sharing her environmental performance, in which regional performers begin a project to perform for vegetation in a local park.

Children’s Voices

Following this approach, Cornelia Parker will be working with schoolchildren – on the actual event she is hoping to cover an art space in kids’ letters and drawings that document their dreams and worries for the future. “Youthful expressions are impactful because they’re not as trammelled as grown-ups’,” she says in her call to action video. “What children have to offer to the world is something truly special and hopefully it will inspire a feeling of duty from each person. Youth is pure. They have fears about the future. But it isn’t meant to be about anxiety – it should be about hope and us ensuring that they see a better world.”

Remembrance and Reflection

Another artist’s work also appeals to children. With a background in performance, his Birds Can Fly involves drawing birds and then embodying them – and for the initiative he is intending to represent Liverpool’s famous Liver bird. He is also conducting a guided walk of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his ongoing series over the recent decades. This endeavor began when he experienced several events of homophobic abuse on a one occasion. In response, Harfleet decided to plant a pansy at the site of each occurrence and record it – the project has since expanded to include incidents shared by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “Apparently birds consume them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

The artist selected the pansy not just for the obvious reason – 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 Remember Nature day is to place blooms at new locations and also refresh the memorials in places he has honored before, all the while discussing with those on the guided walk about the occurrences and his memories of them. “There’s been quite a few following earlier installations,” he says with regret.

Advancing Positively

He desires his work – and