During 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his ultimate major projects. Recognized for introducing auto-destructive art, Metzger had dedicated his life to addressing global challenges from anti-nuclear advocacy to vegetarianism. Via a concise video message, he issued a call for a worldwide initiative to celebrate the natural world.
“I call upon you for your engagement in this global appeal for a day of action to remember nature on the fourth of November, 2015,” he declared, encouraging artists and creatives to oppose the steady eradication of flora and fauna. “Our task is to make audiences aware of the diversity and intricacy in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into domains that are inherently creative.”
In this way Remember Nature was born, a day when artists across the country produced pieces to the ongoing environmental crisis. An organizer, who cared for Metzger in his final years, remembers his sense of urgency. “There was a strong sense of urgency for him at the close of his days,” she says. “My advice was – we must act now. Let’s not wait for sponsorship or for anyone to approve this. Let’s just do it.”
Ten years later, the initiative may not have incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had envisioned, but supporters think its influence can still be felt in movements like artist-led declarations and climate activism networks, as well as in how creatives consider the sustainability of their practices. For this purpose she is restaging it to mark its ten-year mark. Part of the featured creators taking part currently are Cornelia Parker and prominent artists. Each has created visual art, made video appeals, and developed pieces set to be unveiled on the fourth of November next year.
In conversation with the artist, she is out in a field in a rural area, cultivating apple trees that will create a circular grove. Working with schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and half educational workshop. As she explains, the planning and planting sessions have already incorporated learning about maths (spacing the distances between trees), genetics (exploring the hereditary traits), and geography (mapping the stories of how different apples arrived in Britain).
A lot of the apples were chosen because they’ve got humorous titles such as the other unusual varieties. We have one apple that produces red juice
“Several the apples were selected because they’ve got humorous titles such as the other unusual varieties,” says Gallaccio. “We have one apple that releases scarlet-colored sap. Every one carries histories attached. The ancient variety was imported by the Romans. The local breed is the apple that descended from a tree and hit the physicist’s head.”
She hoped the children to be more consciously engaged of the environment and the power we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was urging them, when they go shopping, to read the label and see their names and their origin. Ideally it reads Kent!”
In London, a participant’s Book of Loss will engage visitors searching an art institution on a mission to find the frozen formations that have been disappeared in the past decade. All formations will be illustrated on the gallery’s windows and walls using ultraviolet markers. When located, a alert will occur and a recitation will be conducted to remember that specific ice mass.
At the same time, up in another location, a creative will be hosting a public show about our alienation from the environment, as well as holding a shared meal, made using regional food. In another city, a participant is streaming her environmental performance, in which community vocalists begin a project to use music to heal flora in a green space.
Like Gallaccio, Cornelia Parker will be engaging schoolchildren – on the scheduled date she is planning to cover an art space in children’s artwork that capture their dreams and worries for the years ahead. “Kids’ art are compelling because they’re not as restricted as grown-ups’,” she says in her public appeal. “What children have to offer to the world is something distinctive and it may stimulate a sense of responsibility from each person. Children are innocent. They have concerns for tomorrow. But this shouldn’t be about worry – it should be about positivity and making sure that they get a future.”
A participant’s work also resonates for children. Drawing on past experience, his feathered initiative involves illustrating avians and then embodying them – and for the event he is aiming to represent a local symbol. He is also staging a guided walk of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his long-term work over the last two decades. The project started after he endured multiple occurrences of homophobic abuse on a particular day. As a reaction, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the site of each occurrence and photograph it – the project has since grown to cover events reported by other people across the world. “The flowers remain there but they fade quickly,” says Harfleet. “Apparently pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a very temporary memorial.”
He picked the bloom not just for the direct association – it has long been a slur – but also because its origin is 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 sow flowers at new locations and also replant flowers 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 sadly.
Harfleet hopes his work – and
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