Artists Respond Against the Environmental Crisis: Planting the Fruit That Fell on Newton's Head

During 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his ultimate important works. Famed for introducing auto-destructive art, Metzger had devoted his career to confronting societal issues from nuclear disarmament to vegetarianism. Via a concise video message, he requested support for a worldwide initiative to honor the environment.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your engagement in this international summons for a day of action to remember nature on November 4th, 2015,” he declared, encouraging artists and creatives to stand against the steady eradication of species. “Our task 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 naturally imaginative.”

The Creation of Remember Nature

And so the Nature Remembrance initiative came into being, a day when artists across the country produced pieces to the unfolding climate catastrophe. Jo Joelson, who worked closely with Metzger in his final years, remembers his feeling of immediacy. “There was a strong sense of urgency for him at the close of his days,” she says. “My advice was – don’t delay. We shouldn’t hold back for financial support or for anyone to authorize this. Let’s just do it.”

After Ten Years

After ten years, Remember Nature hasn’t quite incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had envisioned, but organizers feel its influence can still be observed in movements like cultural advocacy groups and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how artists approach the eco-friendliness of their practices. That’s why she is reviving it to commemorate its ten-year mark. Included in the featured creators participating now are Cornelia Parker and other notable figures. All participants have created visual art, made video appeals, and produced installations set to be revealed on 4 November 2025.

Sowing Change

Interviewing the artist, she is working outdoors in the countryside, assisting with planting apple trees that will create a coiled garden. Engaging schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and somewhat instructive. According to her, the design and cultivation sessions have already involved learning about measurements (calculating the distances between trees), genetics (discussing the apple’s DNA), 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 Bloody Butcher. We have one apple that produces crimson liquid

“Several the apples were picked because they’ve got funny names such as the other unusual varieties,” she explains. “We have one apple that releases crimson liquid. Every one carries histories attached. The historical cultivar was imported by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that dropped off a tree and struck the scientist’s head.”

The artist aimed the children to be more actively aware of nature and the influence we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you buy from a supermarket, so I was encouraging them, when they go shopping, to look on the bag and see their names and the source. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Throughout Britain

Within the city, Youngsook Choi’s project on disappearance will include attendees searching Tate Modern on a mission to find the ice masses that have been disappeared in modern times. Every ice sheet will be depicted on the exhibition spaces using invisible ink. When located, a bell will ring and a reading will be performed to remember that particular glacier.

Meanwhile, up in another location, a creative will be presenting a free exhibition about our alienation from the environment, as well as holding a communal feast, made using organic, local produce. In another city, an artist is sharing her environmental performance, in which local singers embark on a mission to perform for vegetation in a green space.

Young Insights

Similar to other artists, Cornelia Parker will be working with schoolchildren – on the actual event she is aiming to cover a cultural venue in children’s artwork that document their hopes and fears for the future. “Kids’ art are compelling because they’re not as trammelled as grown-ups’,” she says in her call to action video. “Young people’s input to the world is something truly special and it may provoke a feeling of duty from each person. Kids are unbiased. They have fears about the future. But this shouldn’t be about fear – it should be about positivity and our responsibility that they get a future.”

Remembrance and Reflection

A participant’s work also appeals to children. Drawing on past experience, his avian project involves sketching winged creatures and then dressing up as them – and for the initiative he is planning to address a local symbol. He is also staging a guided walk of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his long-term work over the last two decades. That ongoing series began when he faced multiple occurrences of homophobic abuse on a single day. In response, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the location of every incident and document it – the project has since grown to cover events shared by other people across the world. “The flowers remain there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “It seems pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a very temporary memorial.”

The artist selected the pansy not just for the direct association – it has long been a term of homophobic abuse – 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 negative trait,” he says.

The project on the event day is to plant pansies at new locations and also renew the tributes in places he has marked earlier, all the while discussing with those on the itinerant journey about the occurrences and his memories of them. “We’ve seen quite a few after my previous work,” he says with regret.

Advancing Positively

Harfleet hopes his work – and