Artists Take a Stand In the Face of the Planetary Crisis: Cultivating the Fruit That Fell on Newton's Head

In 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger launched one of his ultimate significant endeavors. Recognized for introducing art that erases itself, Metzger had devoted his career to addressing global challenges from anti-nuclear advocacy to vegetarianism. In a brief video message, he requested support for a global day of action to celebrate the natural world.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your engagement in this global appeal for a day of action to remember nature on November 4th, 2015,” he declared, inviting artists and creatives to oppose the steady eradication of species. “The mission is to help the public recall of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so art will enter territories that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Birth of Environmental Reflection

In this way the environmental art day was established, a day when artists across the country produced pieces to the unfolding climate catastrophe. Jo Joelson, who cared for Metzger in his later life, remembers his drive for action. “I sensed a strong sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “I urged him – let’s not mess around. We shouldn’t hold back for funding or for anyone to authorize this. We should proceed.”

After Ten Years

Ten years later, Remember Nature hasn’t quite incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had envisioned, but supporters think its legacy can still be felt in campaigns like artist-led declarations and environmental protests, as well as in how makers handle the eco-friendliness of their methods. That’s why she is restaging it to celebrate its ten-year mark. Among the featured creators taking part currently are Yu-Chen Wang and other notable figures. Each has created visual art, shared messages, and developed pieces set to be revealed on 4 November 2025.

Cultivating Awareness

Interviewing one participant, she is working outdoors in a rural area, helping plant apple trees that will develop into a coiled garden. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is part creative piece and half educational workshop. According to her, the design and cultivation sessions have already involved learning about measurements (calculating the gaps in the orchard), biology (discussing the genetic makeup), and origins (mapping the backgrounds of how distinct varieties came to the UK).

A lot of the apples were selected because they’ve got amusing labels such as the other unusual varieties. We have one apple that produces red juice

“Many of the apples were picked because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Duck’s Bill,” she explains. “We have one apple that releases scarlet-colored sap. They all have 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 the physicist’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more consciously engaged of the natural world and the influence we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you get at a supermarket, so I was urging them, next time they were out, to check the packaging and see what they’re called and the source. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Throughout Britain

Within the city, Youngsook Choi’s work about extinction will involve participants exploring an art institution on a journey to find the frozen formations that have been lost in modern times. Each glacier will be drawn on the gallery’s windows and walls using ultraviolet markers. Each discovery, a alert will occur and a performance will be performed to remember that individual formation.

Elsewhere, up in Barrow-in-Furness, Maddi Nicholson will be putting on a public show about our separation from nature, as well as holding a community dinner, cooked from sustainable ingredients. Further north, Uta Kögelsberger is broadcasting her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which community vocalists begin a project to sing plants back to health in a green space.

Young Insights

Following this approach, another participant will be collaborating with schoolchildren – on the day itself she is hoping to cover a cultural venue in kids’ letters and drawings that express their hopes and fears for the years ahead. “Youthful expressions are compelling because they’re not as trammelled as adults’,” she says in her recorded message. “What children have to offer to the world is something quite unique and perhaps it can stimulate a sense of responsibility from each person. Kids are unbiased. They have anxieties about what’s next. But let’s not make it about anxiety – it should be about positivity and us ensuring that they see a better world.”

Tributes and Thoughts

Another artist’s work also resonates for children. Drawing on past experience, his Birds Can Fly involves illustrating avians and then performing as birds – and for the event he is intending to address Liverpool’s famous Liver bird. He is also organizing a itinerant journey of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his long-term work over the past twenty years. This endeavor began when he experienced several events of discrimination on a particular day. To counter this, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the spot where it happened and document it – the project has since spiralled to cover events experienced 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.”

He picked the pansy not just for the direct association – it has long been a slur – but also because its etymology comes from the French verb, penser, to think. “It became associated with 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 new locations and also refresh the memorials in places he has honored before, all the while discussing with those on the itinerant journey about the events and his recollections. “We’ve seen quite a few since I last planted,” he says with regret.

Advancing Positively

Harfleet hopes his work – and