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Back in 2015, artist and activist Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his ultimate significant endeavors. Recognized for introducing self-destructive creations, Metzger had spent a lifetime to confronting global challenges from anti-nuclear advocacy to plant-based living. Through a short video message, he requested support for a international event to celebrate the natural world.

“This is my appeal for your involvement in this worldwide call for a day of action to remember nature on November 4th, 2015,” he stated, urging cultural workers to resist the ongoing loss of living beings. “Our responsibility is to help the public recall of the diversity and intricacy in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore domains that are inherently creative.”

The Inception of Environmental Reflection

In this way the environmental art day was born, a day when creatives nationwide produced pieces to the escalating planetary emergency. Jo Joelson, who worked closely with Metzger in his later life, remembers his drive for action. “There was a great sense of urgency for him at the close of his days,” she says. “I just said – don’t delay. Let’s not wait for sponsorship or for anyone to approve this. Let’s just do it.”

After Ten Years

After ten years, the project did not incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had dreamed of, but supporters think its influence can still be observed in initiatives like Culture Declares and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how makers handle the environmental impact of their methods. That’s why she is relaunching it to commemorate its decade milestone. Among the 18 lead artists involved this time are A Man Called Adam and prominent artists. Each has designed posters, made video appeals, and produced installations set to be presented on November 4, 2025.

Planting Hope

When speaking to one participant, she is on site in Kent, helping plant apple trees that will grow to form a coiled garden. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is part creative piece and somewhat instructive. As she explains, the preparation and sowing sessions have already involved learning about maths (calculating the planting intervals), genetics (studying the genetic makeup), and geography (mapping the journeys of how distinct varieties arrived in Britain).

A lot of the apples were picked because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Duck’s Bill. We have one apple that releases scarcolored sap

“A lot of the apples were selected because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Duck’s Bill,” she explains. “We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ scarlet-colored sap. Every one carries stories behind them. The ancient variety was brought over by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that fell from a tree and landed on Isaac Newton’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more thoughtfully connected of nature and the control we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you get at a supermarket, so I was urging them, next time they were out, to look on the bag and see the variety and their origin. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Artistic Responses Across the Country

At the capital, Youngsook Choi’s project on disappearance will engage visitors exploring an art institution on a mission to find the ice masses that have been disappeared in modern times. All formations will be drawn on the exhibition spaces using ultraviolet markers. Whenever one is found, a chime will sound and a reading will be performed to remember that particular glacier.

Meanwhile, up in a northern town, an artist will be hosting a free exhibition about our separation from nature, as well as holding a communal feast, cooked from organic, local produce. Over in Newcastle, an artist is broadcasting her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which local singers undertake a task to use music to heal flora in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Children’s Voices

Similar to other artists, another participant will be engaging schoolchildren – on the day itself she is aiming to cover a cultural venue in kids’ letters and drawings that document their dreams and worries for the future. “Kids’ art are powerful because they’re not as trammelled as adults’,” she says in her public appeal. “The contributions of youth to the world is something truly special and hopefully it will stimulate a sense of responsibility from us all. Youth is pure. They have concerns for tomorrow. But let’s not make it about anxiety – it should be about positivity and making sure that they get a future.”

Memorials and Memory

Paul Harfleet’s work also appeals to children. Drawing on past experience, his feathered initiative involves drawing birds and then performing as birds – and for the initiative he is planning to tackle a local symbol. He is also staging a guided walk of the city, stopping at places that have been part of his Pansy Project over the past twenty years. This endeavor began when he experienced multiple occurrences of discrimination on a particular day. In response, Harfleet decided to plant a pansy at the site of each occurrence and document it – the project has since expanded to incorporate experiences experienced by other people across the world. “I place the plants there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “Apparently wildlife enjoys them, so they’re a very temporary memorial.”

The artist selected the bloom not just for the clear connection – it has long been a slur – but also because its name derives from the French verb, penser, to think. “People connected it with a man who is reflective, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The project on the event day is to plant pansies at new locations and also refresh the memorials in places he has previously memorialised, all the while talking to those on the itinerant journey about the events and his memories of them. “There’s been quite a few since I last planted,” he says mournfully.

Advancing Positively

Harfleet hopes his work – and