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During 2015, artist and activist Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his final important works. Known for introducing auto-destructive art, Metzger had devoted his career to confronting societal issues from nuclear disarmament to plant-based living. Via a concise 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 announced, inviting artists and creatives to resist the continuing disappearance of living beings. “The mission is to make audiences aware of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so art will enter territories that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Creation of Environmental Reflection

Thus the environmental art day came into being, a day when creatives nationwide produced pieces to the ongoing environmental crisis. One of the curators, who supported Metzger in his later life, remembers his sense of urgency. “I sensed a great sense of urgency for him at the close of his days,” she says. “I just said – don’t delay. We shouldn’t hold back for financial support or for anyone to approve this. Take action immediately.”

A Decade Later

A decade on, the project did not sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but supporters think its influence can still be felt in movements like cultural advocacy groups and environmental protests, as well as in how creatives consider the eco-friendliness of their methods. For this purpose she is restaging it to mark its ten-year mark. Part of the 18 lead artists taking part currently are A Man Called Adam and Anya Gallaccio. They have all created visual art, recorded calls to action, and produced installations set to be unveiled on the fourth of November next year.

Sowing Change

Interviewing one participant, she is working outdoors in the countryside, assisting with planting apple trees that will create a circular grove. Engaging schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and somewhat instructive. As she explains, the preparation and sowing sessions have already included learning about measurements (calculating the distances between trees), biology (exploring the apple’s DNA), and geography (mapping the journeys of how various cultivars came to the UK).

A lot of the apples were chosen because they’ve got funny names such as the other unusual varieties. We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ crimson liquid

“Many of the apples were chosen because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Duck’s Bill,” she explains. “We have one apple that releases red juice. Every one carries stories behind them. The ancient variety was imported by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that fell from a tree and hit Isaac Newton’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more consciously engaged of nature and the influence we have over it. “To many of them, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was encouraging 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

In London, one artist’s work about extinction will engage visitors searching a major gallery on a mission to find the ice masses that have been lost in modern times. Each glacier will be illustrated on the exhibition spaces using ultraviolet markers. Whenever one is found, a chime will sound and a performance will be held to commemorate that specific ice mass.

Meanwhile, up in another location, an artist will be putting on a public show about our separation from nature, as well as holding a community dinner, prepared with sustainable ingredients. Further north, a participant is broadcasting her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which local singers embark on a mission to perform for vegetation in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Youth Perspectives

Similar to other artists, another participant will be engaging schoolchildren – on the scheduled date she is hoping to decorate a cultural venue in kids’ letters and drawings that capture their hopes and fears for the tomorrow. “Youthful expressions are compelling because they’re not as restricted as grown-ups’,” she says in her call to action video. “Young people’s input to the world is something quite unique and hopefully it will provoke a feeling of duty from us all. Kids are unbiased. They have fears about the future. But it isn’t meant to be about fear – it should be about positivity and us ensuring that they get a future.”

Tributes and Thoughts

A participant’s work also appeals to children. With a background in performance, his Birds Can Fly involves drawing birds and then dressing up as them – and for Remember Nature day he is aiming to represent a local symbol. He is also staging a itinerant journey of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his long-term work over the last two decades. This endeavor began when he endured several events of discrimination on a single day. 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. “I leave the pansies there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “Reportedly pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

He picked 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 negative trait,” he says.

The intention on 4 November is to place blooms at additional sites and also refresh the memorials in places he has previously memorialised, all the while talking to those on the guided walk about the occurrences and his memories of them. “I’ve recorded quite a few since I last planted,” he says mournfully.

Progressing Optimistically

The artist wishes his work – and