Creatives Take a Stand In the Face of the Environmental Crisis: Cultivating the Fruit That Dropped on Newton's Head

Back in 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger initiated one of his last major projects. Recognized for creating self-destructive creations, Metzger had devoted his career to confronting global challenges from nuclear disarmament to plant-based living. In a brief video message, he issued a call for a worldwide initiative to remember nature.

“This is my appeal for your engagement in this global appeal for a day of action to commemorate our planet on the fourth of November, 2015,” he stated, urging artists and creatives to stand against the steady eradication of species. “The mission is to help the public recall of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into domains that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Inception of Nature Remembrance

In this way the Nature Remembrance initiative was established, a day when creatives nationwide created responses to the unfolding climate catastrophe. Jo Joelson, who supported Metzger in his final years, recalls his feeling of immediacy. “There was a strong sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “I just said – let’s not mess around. Let’s not wait for sponsorship or for anyone to green light this. We should proceed.”

A Decade Later

After ten years, Remember Nature hasn’t quite sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had dreamed of, but supporters think its legacy can still be felt in initiatives like cultural advocacy groups and environmental protests, as well as in how makers handle the sustainability of their practices. For this purpose she is reviving it to commemorate its decade milestone. Part of the featured creators taking part currently are Yu-Chen Wang and Anya Gallaccio. They have all designed posters, made video appeals, and created artworks set to be revealed on 4 November 2025.

Cultivating Awareness

Interviewing one participant, she is on site in Kent, cultivating apple trees that will grow to form a spiral-shaped orchard. Engaging schoolchildren, her project is part creative piece and half educational workshop. She describes, the planning and planting sessions have already involved learning about measurements (measuring out the distances between trees), genetics (discussing the hereditary traits), and geography (tracing the backgrounds of how distinct varieties arrived in Britain).

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

“A lot of the apples were chosen because they’ve got funny names such as the Duck’s Bill,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that produces red juice. They all have histories attached. The decio apple was imported by the Romans. The local breed is the apple that dropped off a tree and landed on the physicist’s head.”

Gallaccio wanted the children to be more consciously engaged of the environment and the power we have over it. “To many of them, apples were just things you buy from a supermarket, so I was urging them, on their next shopping trip, to check the packaging and see what they’re called and the source. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Artistic Responses Nationwide

At the capital, Youngsook Choi’s Book of Loss will engage visitors searching a major gallery on a quest to find the seven major glaciers that have been lost in the past decade. Each glacier will be illustrated on the exhibition spaces using special pens. Each discovery, a alert will occur and a reading will be performed to remember that individual formation.

Meanwhile, up in Barrow-in-Furness, Maddi Nicholson will be hosting a open display about our disconnection from the land, as well as holding a communal feast, cooked from sustainable ingredients. Further north, an artist is sharing her musical project, in which regional performers undertake a task to sing plants back to health in a green space.

Young Insights

Like Gallaccio, Cornelia Parker will be collaborating with schoolchildren – on the day itself she is aiming to cover an art space in kids’ letters and drawings that express their aspirations and concerns for the years ahead. “Youthful expressions are impactful because they’re not as restricted as mature perspectives,” she says in her public appeal. “Young people’s input to the world is something quite unique and hopefully it will inspire a sense of responsibility from each person. Youth is pure. They have concerns for tomorrow. But let’s not make it about anxiety – it should be about hope and our responsibility that they get a future.”

Memorials and Memory

Another artist’s work also connects with children. Drawing on past experience, his avian project involves drawing birds and then dressing up as them – and for the initiative he is aiming to represent an iconic figure. He is also organizing a walking tour of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his long-term work over the last two decades. That ongoing series began when he faced multiple occurrences of prejudice on a one occasion. In response, Harfleet decided to plant a pansy at the location of every incident and document it – the project has since spiralled to incorporate experiences shared by other people across the world. “The flowers remain there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “Reportedly birds consume them, so they’re a short-lived memorial.”

He picked the flower 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. “People connected it with a man who is contemplative, and that, of course, is a terrible thing,” he says.

The plan on Remember Nature day is to sow flowers at new locations and also replant flowers in places he has previously memorialised, 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 with regret.

Moving Forward with Hope

Harfleet hopes his work – and