🔗 Share this article

In 2015, artist and activist Gustav Metzger launched one of his final major projects. Known for introducing auto-destructive art, Metzger had spent a lifetime to confronting global challenges from peace activism to plant-based living. Through a short video message, he made a plea for a worldwide initiative to honor the environment.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your engagement in this worldwide call for a day of action to commemorate our planet on the fourth of November, 2015,” he declared, inviting artists and creatives to resist the steady eradication of living beings. “Our responsibility is to remind people of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore domains that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Inception of Environmental Reflection

Thus the environmental art day was established, a day when creatives nationwide developed works to the unfolding climate catastrophe. Jo Joelson, who worked closely with Metzger in his later life, notes his feeling of immediacy. “I sensed a profound sense of urgency for him at the close of his days,” she says. “My advice was – let’s not mess around. Let’s not wait for sponsorship or for anyone to authorize this. Let’s just do it.”

Ten Years On

A decade on, the project may not have incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but supporters think its impact can still be felt in initiatives like artist-led declarations and environmental protests, as well as in how makers handle the environmental impact of their practices. This is the reason she is relaunching it to mark its ten-year mark. Among the 18 lead artists participating now are Cornelia Parker and Anya Gallaccio. All participants have created visual art, made video appeals, and developed pieces set to be revealed on November 4, 2025.

Cultivating Awareness

When speaking to one participant, she is out in a field in a rural area, assisting with planting apple trees that will develop into a coiled garden. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is half artwork and half educational workshop. She describes, the design and cultivation sessions have already involved learning about maths (spacing the gaps in the orchard), genetics (studying the hereditary traits), and history (researching the backgrounds of how distinct varieties came to the UK).

Many of the apples were picked 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 humorous titles such as the Bloody Butcher,” she explains. “We have one apple that produces red juice. They all have background narratives. The ancient variety was introduced by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that fell from a tree and struck the physicist’s head.”

The artist aimed the children to be more consciously engaged of the environment and the influence we have over it. “For a lot of them, apples were just things you buy from a supermarket, so I was encouraging them, next time they were out, to read the label and see what they’re called and the source. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Artistic Responses Nationwide

In London, a participant’s work about extinction will involve participants searching Tate Modern on a mission to find the seven major glaciers that have been lost in recent years. Each glacier will be drawn on the exhibition spaces using invisible ink. When located, a alert will occur and a performance will be conducted to commemorate that particular glacier.

Elsewhere, up in a northern town, a creative will be presenting a open display about our separation from nature, as well as hosting a community dinner, prepared with sustainable ingredients. In another city, Uta Kögelsberger is broadcasting her musical project, in which regional performers begin a project to sing plants back to health in a green space.

Youth Perspectives

Similar to other artists, Cornelia Parker will be collaborating with schoolchildren – on the actual event she is planning to decorate a cultural venue in children’s artwork that document their hopes and fears for the tomorrow. “Kids’ art are powerful because they’re not as inhibited as adults’,” she says in her public appeal. “The contributions of youth to the world is something quite unique and perhaps it can provoke a feeling of duty from us all. Youth is pure. They have anxieties about what’s next. But it isn’t meant to be about worry – it should be about optimism and us ensuring that they get a future.”

Memorials and Memory

Another artist’s work also resonates for children. As a former drag queen, his avian project involves sketching winged creatures and then performing as birds – and for the event he is intending to represent a local symbol. He is also organizing a itinerant journey of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his ongoing series over the past twenty years. The project started after he faced three incidents of homophobic abuse on a one occasion. In response, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the site of each occurrence and photograph it – the project has since spiralled to incorporate experiences experienced by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “Reportedly birds consume them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

The artist selected the bloom 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 Remember Nature day is to place blooms at fresh spots and also refresh the memorials in places he has marked earlier, all the while conversing with those on the guided walk about the events and his personal experiences. “I’ve recorded quite a few since I last planted,” he says sadly.

Progressing Optimistically

The artist wishes his work – and