Cultural Figures Fight Back In the Face of the Climate Emergency: Sowing the Apple That Dropped on Isaac Newton's Head

Back in 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger launched one of his last significant endeavors. Recognized for introducing art that erases itself, Metzger had dedicated his life to responding to societal issues from peace activism to ethical eating. Through a short video message, he made a plea for a international event to honor the environment.

“I call upon you for your involvement in this worldwide call for a day of action to reflect on the environment on the fourth of November, 2015,” he declared, encouraging cultural workers to oppose the continuing disappearance of species. “Our responsibility is to remind people of the diversity and intricacy in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into realms that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Inception of Environmental Reflection

And so the environmental art day came into being, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain created responses to the ongoing environmental crisis. An organizer, who worked closely with Metzger in his later life, remembers his feeling of immediacy. “There was a great sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “My advice was – we must act now. Let’s not wait for funding or for anyone to authorize this. Take action immediately.”

Ten Years On

A decade on, Remember Nature hasn’t quite triggered the broad uprising across the arts that Metzger had dreamed of, but supporters think its influence can still be felt in campaigns like Culture Declares and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how creatives consider the sustainability of their work. This is the reason she is reviving it to celebrate its decade milestone. Among the key participants participating now are A Man Called Adam and Anya Gallaccio. They have all designed posters, made video appeals, and produced installations set to be presented on the fourth of November next year.

Planting Hope

Interviewing Anya Gallaccio, she is on site in a rural area, helping plant apple trees that will create a coiled garden. Engaging schoolchildren, her project is part creative piece and half educational workshop. She describes, the planning and planting sessions have already incorporated learning about mathematics (measuring out the planting intervals), biology (studying the hereditary traits), and origins (mapping the journeys of how distinct varieties were introduced to England).

Many of the apples were chosen because they’ve got humorous titles such as the other unusual varieties. We have one apple that produces crimson liquid

“Several the apples were chosen because they’ve got funny names such as the Bloody Butcher,” she explains. “We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ scarlet-colored sap. They all have histories attached. The decio apple was imported by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that descended from a tree and landed on the scientist’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more actively aware of the natural world and the power we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you buy from a supermarket, so I was encouraging them, when they go shopping, to look on the bag and see the variety and the source. Hopefully it says Kent!”

Cultural Projects Across the Country

At the capital, Youngsook Choi’s Book of Loss will involve participants exploring a major gallery on a mission to find the seven major glaciers that have been vanished in the past decade. Every ice sheet will be drawn on the gallery’s windows and walls using special pens. When located, a alert will occur and a performance will be conducted to commemorate that particular glacier.

Meanwhile, up in a northern town, Maddi Nicholson will be presenting a free exhibition about our disconnection from the land, as well as holding a community dinner, prepared with sustainable ingredients. In another city, Uta Kögelsberger is sharing her environmental performance, in which regional performers undertake a task to perform for vegetation in a green space.

Young Insights

Like Gallaccio, a featured creator will be working with schoolchildren – on the actual event she is hoping to decorate a cultural venue in children’s artwork that express their hopes and fears for the years ahead. “Youthful expressions are impactful because they’re not as trammelled as grown-ups’,” she says in her public appeal. “Young people’s input to the world is something distinctive and it may stimulate a awareness of obligation from us all. Children are innocent. They have anxieties about what’s next. But this shouldn’t be about anxiety – it should be about optimism and our responsibility that they see a better world.”

Remembrance and Reflection

Paul Harfleet’s work also appeals to children. Drawing on past experience, his Birds Can Fly involves illustrating avians and then dressing up as them – and for the initiative he is planning to represent a local symbol. He is also conducting a itinerant journey of the city, stopping at places that have been part of his long-term work over the past twenty years. That ongoing series began when he faced multiple occurrences of homophobic abuse on a single day. As a reaction, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the site of each occurrence and record it – the project has since spiralled to incorporate experiences shared by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they fade quickly,” says Harfleet. “Apparently pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a short-lived memorial.”

Harfleet chose the bloom not just for the direct association – it has long been a slur – but also because its etymology comes 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 plan on Remember Nature day is to plant pansies at additional sites and also renew the tributes in places he has marked earlier, all the while discussing with those on the guided walk about the incidents and his memories of them. “I’ve recorded quite a few following earlier installations,” he says mournfully.

Advancing Positively

The artist wishes his work – and