Artists Take a Stand Against the Planetary Crisis: Planting the Fruit That Dropped on Isaac Newton's Head

In 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger initiated one of his last major projects. Famed for creating art that erases itself, Metzger had dedicated his life to responding to human struggles from anti-nuclear advocacy to ethical eating. Through a short video message, he issued a call for a worldwide initiative to celebrate the natural world.

“I call upon you for your involvement in this international summons for a day of action to commemorate our planet on 4 November 2015,” he declared, encouraging artists and creatives to stand against the steady eradication of flora and fauna. “Our responsibility is to remind people of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore realms that are naturally imaginative.”

The Inception of Environmental Reflection

And so Remember Nature came into being, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain developed works to the escalating planetary emergency. Jo Joelson, who supported Metzger in his last days, recalls his drive for action. “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 financial support or for anyone to authorize this. Take action immediately.”

Ten Years On

After ten years, the initiative hasn’t quite incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had envisioned, but Joelson believes its influence can still be observed in initiatives like artist-led declarations and environmental protests, as well as in how makers handle the sustainability of their work. This is the reason she is relaunching it to mark its decade milestone. Among the key participants participating now are Cornelia Parker and Anya Gallaccio. All participants have designed posters, made video appeals, and produced installations set to be unveiled on 4 November 2025.

Planting Hope

Interviewing Anya Gallaccio, she is out in a field in the countryside, helping plant apple trees that will develop into a spiral-shaped orchard. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and half educational workshop. She describes, the planning and planting sessions have already incorporated learning about maths (measuring out the planting intervals), science (exploring the genetic makeup), and origins (tracing the stories of how different apples arrived in Britain).

Many of the apples were selected because they’ve got funny names such as the Duck’s Bill. We have one apple that produces scarcolored sap

“Several the apples were chosen because they’ve got amusing labels such as the other unusual varieties,” she explains. “We have one apple that produces scarlet-colored sap. They all have background narratives. The ancient variety was introduced by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that descended from a tree and struck the scientist’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more consciously engaged of nature and the control we have over it. “For a lot of them, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was encouraging them, when they go shopping, to check the packaging and see the variety and their origin. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Cultural Projects Nationwide

In London, one artist’s work about extinction will involve participants looking through a major gallery on a mission to find the frozen formations that have been disappeared in the past decade. Every ice sheet will be illustrated on the gallery’s windows and walls using invisible ink. Whenever one is found, a chime will sound and a reading will be performed to commemorate that individual formation.

At the same time, up in Barrow-in-Furness, Maddi Nicholson will be presenting a public show about our disconnection from the land, as well as organizing a communal feast, cooked from regional food. In another city, an artist is sharing her musical project, in which community vocalists begin a project to sing plants back to health in a green space.

Children’s Voices

Following this approach, another participant will be collaborating with schoolchildren – on the scheduled date she is hoping to cover Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in kids’ letters and drawings that document their dreams and worries for the future. “Children’s words and images are compelling because they’re not as trammelled as grown-ups’,” she says in her public appeal. “What children have to offer to the world is something truly special and hopefully it will inspire a sense of responsibility from each person. Children are innocent. They have concerns for tomorrow. But this shouldn’t be about anxiety – it should be about hope and our responsibility that they see a better world.”

Tributes and Thoughts

A participant’s work also connects with children. Drawing on past experience, his feathered initiative involves illustrating avians and then dressing up as them – and for Remember Nature day he is intending to represent Liverpool’s famous Liver bird. He is also staging a walking tour of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his long-term work over the recent decades. That ongoing series started after he faced several events of discrimination on a single day. To counter this, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the location of every incident and document it – the project has since grown to include incidents reported by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they fade quickly,” says Harfleet. “It seems pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a short-lived memorial.”

He picked the bloom not just for the obvious reason – it has long been a term of homophobic abuse – 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 bad quality,” he says.

The plan on the event day is to sow flowers at additional sites and also refresh the memorials in places he has honored before, all the while conversing with those on the itinerant journey about the incidents and his memories of them. “There’s been quite a few after my previous work,” he says mournfully.

Advancing Positively

Harfleet hopes his work – and