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During 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger initiated one of his last important works. Famed for pioneering art that erases itself, Metzger had spent a lifetime to addressing human struggles from nuclear disarmament to plant-based living. Through a short video message, he requested support for a global day of action to celebrate the natural world.

“This is my appeal for your participation in this worldwide call for a day of action to reflect on the environment on November 4th, 2015,” he announced, encouraging artists and creatives to resist the ongoing loss of living beings. “Our responsibility is to help the public recall of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so art will enter realms that are inherently creative.”

The Inception of Nature Remembrance

And so the environmental art day was established, a day when creatives nationwide created responses to the ongoing environmental crisis. One of the curators, who cared for Metzger in his later life, recalls his sense of urgency. “He had a great 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. We should proceed.”

A Decade Later

After ten years, the initiative did not sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had dreamed of, but Joelson believes its influence can still be felt in initiatives like artist-led declarations and climate activism networks, as well as in how makers handle the eco-friendliness of their work. That’s why she is restaging it to celebrate its decade milestone. Among the 18 lead artists involved this time are A Man Called Adam and prominent artists. All participants have designed posters, recorded calls to action, and produced installations set to be unveiled on 4 November 2025.

Sowing Change

Interviewing the artist, she is out in a field in Kent, helping plant apple trees that will develop into a spiral-shaped orchard. Working with schoolchildren, her project is half artwork and part learning experience. She describes, the design and cultivation sessions have already involved learning about measurements (spacing the gaps in the orchard), biology (discussing the genetic makeup), and origins (tracing the stories of how various cultivars were introduced to England).

Many of the apples were picked because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Duck’s Bill. We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ crimson liquid

“A lot of the apples were picked because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Duck’s Bill,” she explains. “We have one apple that produces red juice. Each has background narratives. The decio apple was brought over by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that dropped off a tree and landed on the scientist’s head.”

Gallaccio wanted the children to be more thoughtfully connected of the environment and the control we have over it. “To many of them, apples were just things you get at a supermarket, so I was encouraging them, next time they were out, to look on the bag and see their names and their origin. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Throughout Britain

Within the city, one artist’s work about extinction will include attendees searching a major gallery on a mission to find the ice masses that have been vanished in recent years. Each glacier will be drawn on the gallery’s windows and walls using ultraviolet markers. When located, a chime will sound and a performance will be conducted to remember that specific ice mass.

At the same time, up in a northern town, Maddi Nicholson will be hosting a public show about our disconnection from the land, as well as hosting a community dinner, prepared with organic, local produce. In another city, an artist is broadcasting her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which community vocalists undertake a task to perform for vegetation in a local park.

Young Insights

Similar to other artists, a featured creator will be engaging schoolchildren – on the scheduled date she is hoping to decorate an art space in children’s artwork 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 public appeal. “What children have to offer to the world is something truly special and perhaps it can stimulate a feeling of duty from everyone. Kids are unbiased. They have fears about the future. But this shouldn’t be about fear – it should be about hope and us ensuring that they get a future.”

Memorials and Memory

A participant’s work also appeals to children. Drawing on past experience, his Birds Can Fly involves sketching winged creatures and then embodying them – and for the event he is aiming to represent a local symbol. He is also conducting a itinerant journey of the city, stopping at places that have been part of his Pansy Project over the past twenty years. That ongoing series began when he experienced several events of discrimination on a particular day. As a reaction, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the spot where it happened and photograph it – the project has since spiralled to include incidents reported by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “Reportedly pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a very temporary memorial.”

Harfleet chose the flower not just for the clear connection – it has long been a derogatory label – but also because its name derives from the French verb, penser, to think. “It was linked to a man who is contemplative, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The plan on the event day is to sow flowers at additional sites and also refresh the memorials in places he has honored before, all the while discussing with those on the itinerant journey about the occurrences and his recollections. “We’ve seen quite a few since I last planted,” he says mournfully.

Moving Forward with Hope

The artist wishes his work – and