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In 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger launched one of his last important works. Recognized for pioneering self-destructive creations, Metzger had devoted his career to responding to societal issues from anti-nuclear advocacy to plant-based living. In a brief video message, he issued a call 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 reflect on the environment on the fourth of November, 2015,” he stated, encouraging makers and thinkers to resist the continuing disappearance of living beings. “Our task is to make audiences aware of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so art will enter realms that are naturally imaginative.”

The Birth of Environmental Reflection

And so the environmental art day was established, a day when creatives nationwide developed works to the unfolding climate catastrophe. One of the curators, who supported Metzger in his last days, recalls his sense of urgency. “There was a great sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “My advice was – let’s not mess around. We shouldn’t hold back for funding or for anyone to approve this. Let’s just do it.”

After Ten Years

After ten years, the project hasn’t quite 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 sustainability of their methods. For this purpose she is reviving it to commemorate its 10-year anniversary. Included in the featured creators involved this time are A Man Called Adam and prominent artists. They have all produced imagery, recorded calls to action, and produced installations set to be unveiled on the fourth of November next year.

Planting Hope

When speaking to one participant, she is out in a field in Kent, cultivating apple trees that will develop into a circular grove. Engaging schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and half educational workshop. According to her, the preparation and sowing sessions have already involved learning about maths (measuring out the gaps in the orchard), biology (discussing the genetic makeup), and geography (researching the stories of how various cultivars arrived in Britain).

Several the apples were selected because they’ve got funny names such as the Duck’s Bill. We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ crimson liquid

“Many of the apples were chosen because they’ve got funny names such as the Bloody Butcher,” she explains. “We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ crimson liquid. They all have stories behind them. The ancient variety was imported by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that fell from a tree and struck Isaac Newton’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more actively aware of the natural world and the power we have over it. “For a lot of them, apples were just things you buy from a supermarket, so I was prompting them, when they go shopping, to look on the bag and see what they’re called and their origin. Hopefully it says Kent!”

Artistic Responses Throughout Britain

Within the city, one artist’s work about extinction will include attendees looking through an art institution on a quest to find the seven major glaciers that have been vanished in the past decade. All formations will be illustrated on the gallery’s windows and walls using special pens. When located, a bell will ring and a performance will be held to commemorate that particular glacier.

At the same time, up in another location, a creative will be presenting a public show about our alienation from the environment, as well as holding a community dinner, cooked from sustainable ingredients. In another city, a participant is broadcasting her musical project, in which regional performers undertake a task to perform for vegetation in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Youth Perspectives

Like Gallaccio, Cornelia Parker will be collaborating with schoolchildren – on the day itself she is hoping to fill a cultural venue in kids’ letters and drawings that express their dreams and worries for the years ahead. “Youthful expressions are powerful because they’re not as trammelled as adults’,” she says in her call to action video. “The contributions of youth to the world is something truly special and it may stimulate a sense of responsibility from each person. Youth is pure. They have anxieties about what’s next. But let’s not make it about worry – it should be about optimism and our responsibility that they see a better world.”

Remembrance and Reflection

A participant’s work also appeals to children. Drawing on past experience, his feathered initiative involves sketching winged creatures and then dressing up as them – and for the event he is planning to tackle Liverpool’s famous Liver bird. He is also conducting a walking tour of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his Pansy Project over the past twenty years. The project started after he endured three incidents of discrimination on a particular day. To counter this, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the spot where it happened and record it – the project has since grown to cover events shared by other people across the world. “I place the plants there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “It seems wildlife enjoys them, so they’re a short-lived memorial.”

Harfleet chose the bloom not just for the obvious reason – it has long been a slur – 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 terrible thing,” he says.

The plan on 4 November is to sow flowers at additional sites and also refresh the memorials in places he has previously memorialised, all the while conversing with those on the itinerant journey about the events and his recollections. “We’ve seen quite a few since I last planted,” he says mournfully.

Progressing Optimistically

He desires his work – and