Creatives Fight Back Against the Environmental Crisis: Cultivating the Apple That Dropped on Newton's Head

In 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger launched one of his ultimate significant endeavors. Known for creating self-destructive creations, Metzger had devoted his career to responding to global challenges from anti-nuclear advocacy to plant-based living. Via a concise video message, he made a plea for a global day of action to celebrate the natural world.

“I call upon you for your engagement in this international summons for a day of action to remember nature on November 4th, 2015,” he stated, inviting cultural workers to stand against the steady eradication of flora and fauna. “The mission is to help the public recall of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore domains that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Birth of Environmental Reflection

Thus Remember Nature came into being, a day when artists across the country developed works to the ongoing environmental crisis. One of the curators, who worked closely with Metzger in his later life, remembers his feeling of immediacy. “He had a profound sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “I urged him – don’t delay. We shouldn’t hold back for sponsorship or for anyone to green light this. Let’s just do it.”

A Decade Later

After ten years, Remember Nature did not triggered the broad uprising across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but organizers feel its impact can still be felt in movements like artist-led declarations and environmental protests, as well as in how creatives consider the sustainability of their practices. That’s why she is restaging it to commemorate its 10-year anniversary. Included in the 18 lead artists taking part currently are A Man Called Adam and prominent artists. Each has produced imagery, recorded calls to action, and produced installations set to be presented on the fourth of November next year.

Planting Hope

In conversation with Anya Gallaccio, she is on site in a rural area, helping plant apple trees that will grow to form a spiral-shaped orchard. Engaging schoolchildren, her project is half artwork and part learning experience. She describes, the preparation and sowing sessions have already incorporated learning about maths (spacing the gaps in the orchard), science (studying the genetic makeup), and geography (mapping the journeys of how different apples were introduced to England).

Several the apples were picked because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Bloody Butcher. We have one apple that produces crimson liquid

“Many of the apples were chosen because they’ve got funny names such as the Duck’s Bill,” says Gallaccio. “We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ scarlet-colored sap. They all have stories behind them. The ancient variety was introduced by the Romans. The local breed is the apple that dropped off a tree and landed on Isaac Newton’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more thoughtfully connected of the natural world and the control we have over it. “For a lot of them, apples were just things you get at a supermarket, so I was prompting them, when they go shopping, to look on the bag and see their names and the source. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Artistic Responses Throughout Britain

In London, a participant’s work about extinction will include attendees searching an art institution on a journey to find the frozen formations that have been disappeared in the past decade. All formations will be depicted on the gallery’s windows and walls using invisible ink. Whenever one is found, a chime will sound and a performance will be conducted to honor that individual formation.

Meanwhile, up in a northern town, a creative will be presenting a free exhibition about our disconnection from the land, as well as organizing a shared meal, cooked from regional food. Over in Newcastle, a participant is broadcasting her musical project, in which regional performers begin a project to sing plants back to health in a green space.

Children’s Voices

Following this approach, another participant will be engaging schoolchildren – on the day itself she is planning to cover an art space in kids’ letters and drawings that express their aspirations and concerns for the future. “Children’s words and images are impactful because they’re not as inhibited as grown-ups’,” she says in her recorded message. “What children have to offer to the world is something distinctive and hopefully it will stimulate a awareness of obligation from us all. Youth is pure. They have anxieties about what’s next. But let’s not make it about anxiety – it should be about positivity and our responsibility that they get a future.”

Tributes and Thoughts

A participant’s work also appeals to children. As a former drag queen, his avian project involves illustrating avians and then performing as birds – and for the event 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 ongoing series over the last two decades. This endeavor began when he experienced multiple occurrences of homophobic abuse on a one occasion. As a reaction, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the site of each occurrence and document it – the project has since grown to incorporate experiences shared by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “It seems pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

Harfleet chose the bloom not just for the clear connection – it has long been a derogatory label – but also because its name derives from the French verb, penser, to think. “It was linked to a man who is thoughtful, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The plan on Remember Nature day is to place blooms at additional sites and also replant flowers in places he has previously memorialised, all the while conversing with those on the guided walk about the occurrences and his recollections. “We’ve seen quite a few since I last planted,” he says sadly.

Advancing Positively

Harfleet hopes his work – and