Cultural Figures Take a Stand In the Face of the Planetary Crisis: Sowing the Fruit That Dropped on Newton's Head

In 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger launched one of his final significant endeavors. Recognized for pioneering self-destructive creations, Metzger had devoted his career to confronting societal issues from anti-nuclear advocacy to plant-based living. Via a concise video message, he issued a call for a worldwide initiative to honor the environment.

“This is my appeal for your involvement in this international summons for a day of action to reflect on the environment on 4 November 2015,” he announced, inviting makers and thinkers to oppose the ongoing loss of species. “Our task is to make audiences aware of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into territories that are naturally imaginative.”

The Birth of Environmental Reflection

And so the Nature Remembrance initiative was established, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain created responses to the escalating planetary emergency. An organizer, who cared for Metzger in his later life, notes his feeling of immediacy. “I sensed a profound sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “My advice was – let’s not mess around. No need to pause for sponsorship or for anyone to green light this. Let’s just do it.”

After Ten Years

A decade on, the project did not sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had dreamed of, but supporters think its impact can still be seen in movements like artist-led declarations and climate activism networks, as well as in how artists approach the sustainability of their methods. This is the reason she is relaunching it to commemorate its decade milestone. Part of the featured creators involved this time are A Man Called Adam and prominent artists. They have all created visual art, made video appeals, and produced installations set to be unveiled on the fourth of November next year.

Cultivating Awareness

Interviewing one participant, she is out in a field in Kent, cultivating apple trees that will create a coiled garden. Working with schoolchildren, her project is part creative piece and half educational workshop. She describes, the design and cultivation sessions have already involved learning about maths (calculating the planting intervals), science (discussing the hereditary traits), and origins (mapping the journeys of how various cultivars arrived in Britain).

Many of the apples were picked because they’ve got amusing labels such as the other unusual varieties. We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ red juice

“Several the apples were picked because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Duck’s Bill,” she explains. “We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ crimson liquid. Each has background narratives. The ancient variety was brought over by the Romans. The local breed is the apple that descended from a tree and landed on Isaac Newton’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more consciously engaged of the natural world and the power we have over it. “To many of them, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was encouraging them, next time they were out, to read the label and see what they’re called and the source. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Across the Country

At the capital, a participant’s work about extinction will involve participants looking through an art institution on a journey to find the seven major glaciers that have been lost in the past decade. Every ice sheet will be drawn on the exhibition spaces using invisible ink. Each discovery, a alert will occur and a reading will be held to commemorate that specific ice mass.

Elsewhere, up in another location, an artist will be hosting a public show about our disconnection from the land, as well as organizing a shared meal, made using sustainable ingredients. Further north, Uta Kögelsberger is broadcasting her environmental performance, in which regional performers embark on a mission to use music to heal flora in a local park.

Youth Perspectives

Like Gallaccio, a featured creator will be engaging schoolchildren – on the actual event she is planning to fill an art space in youth creations that document their dreams and worries for the years ahead. “Kids’ art are powerful because they’re not as inhibited as mature perspectives,” she says in her call to action video. “The contributions of youth to the world is something quite unique and hopefully it will provoke a sense of responsibility from us all. Children are innocent. They have anxieties about what’s next. But it isn’t meant to be about worry – it should be about optimism and our responsibility that they get a future.”

Memorials and Memory

Paul Harfleet’s work also resonates for children. With a background in performance, his Birds Can Fly involves drawing birds and then performing as birds – and for the event he is intending to represent an iconic figure. He is also staging a itinerant journey of the city, stopping at places that have been part of his ongoing series over the past twenty years. This endeavor began when he experienced multiple occurrences of discrimination on a single day. As a reaction, Harfleet decided to sow a flower at the location of every incident and document it – the project has since expanded to include incidents reported by other people across the world. “The flowers remain there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “It seems birds consume them, so they’re a very temporary memorial.”

He picked the flower not just for the direct association – it has long been a derogatory label – but also because its name derives from the French verb, penser, to think. “It became associated with a man who is contemplative, and that, of course, is a negative trait,” he says.

The project on 4 November is to sow flowers at new locations and also replant flowers in places he has previously memorialised, all the while conversing with those on the itinerant journey about the events and his personal experiences. “I’ve recorded quite a few after my previous work,” he says mournfully.

Moving Forward with Hope

The artist wishes his work – and