Artists Fight Back In the Face of the Environmental Crisis: Cultivating the Apple That Fell on Isaac Newton's Head

In 2015, artist and activist Gustav Metzger initiated one of his last important works. Recognized for creating auto-destructive art, Metzger had devoted his career to responding to societal issues from nuclear disarmament to ethical eating. Through a short video message, he made a plea for a global day of action to celebrate the natural world.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your involvement in this worldwide call for a day of action to commemorate our planet on the fourth of November, 2015,” he stated, urging makers and thinkers to stand against the continuing disappearance of flora and fauna. “Our responsibility is to remind people of the diversity and intricacy in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore territories that are naturally imaginative.”

The Inception of Nature Remembrance

Thus Remember Nature was born, a day when creatives nationwide developed works to the escalating planetary emergency. Jo Joelson, who cared for Metzger in his final years, recalls his feeling of immediacy. “He had a strong sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “I just said – don’t delay. Let’s not wait for sponsorship or for anyone to authorize this. We should proceed.”

Ten Years On

A decade on, the initiative may not have triggered the broad uprising across the arts that Metzger had envisioned, but organizers feel its impact can still be observed in campaigns like artist-led declarations and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how artists approach the sustainability of their practices. That’s why she is restaging it to mark its 10-year anniversary. Included in the 18 lead artists participating now are A Man Called Adam and Anya Gallaccio. All participants have produced imagery, made video appeals, and created artworks set to be presented on November 4, 2025.

Cultivating Awareness

In conversation with Anya Gallaccio, she is on site in a rural area, helping plant apple trees that will develop into a spiral-shaped orchard. Engaging schoolchildren, her project is part creative piece and half educational workshop. She describes, the design and cultivation sessions have already incorporated learning about measurements (calculating the gaps in the orchard), genetics (discussing the apple’s DNA), and geography (researching the journeys of how various cultivars came to the UK).

Many of the apples were chosen because they’ve got funny names such as the Duck’s Bill. We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ red juice

“A lot of the apples were chosen because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Duck’s Bill,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ red juice. Every one carries background narratives. The historical cultivar was introduced by the Romans. The local breed is the apple that fell from a tree and landed on the physicist’s head.”

The artist aimed the children to be more actively aware of the natural world and the influence we have over it. “To many of them, apples were just things you get at a supermarket, so I was encouraging them, when they go shopping, to check the packaging and see their names and the source. Hopefully it says Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Throughout Britain

At the capital, Youngsook Choi’s project on disappearance will involve participants exploring an art institution on a journey to find the ice masses that have been vanished in the past decade. Each glacier will be drawn on the museum surfaces using special pens. When located, a alert will occur and a recitation will be held to commemorate that particular glacier.

Elsewhere, up in a northern town, Maddi Nicholson will be hosting a public show about our alienation from the environment, as well as organizing a community dinner, made using regional food. In another city, an artist is sharing her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which local singers begin a project to sing plants back to health in a local park.

Children’s Voices

Like Gallaccio, Cornelia Parker will be engaging schoolchildren – on the actual event she is aiming to decorate Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard in children’s artwork that capture their dreams and worries for the tomorrow. “Youthful expressions are compelling because they’re not as restricted as grown-ups’,” she says in her call to action video. “What children have to offer to the world is something truly special and hopefully it will stimulate a feeling of duty from us all. Kids are unbiased. They have fears about the future. But this shouldn’t be about worry – it should be about hope and making sure that they get a future.”

Remembrance and Reflection

A participant’s work also connects with children. Drawing on past experience, his avian project involves sketching winged creatures and then dressing up as them – and for Remember Nature day he is planning to address Liverpool’s famous Liver bird. He is also organizing a guided walk of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his long-term work over the recent decades. That ongoing series started after he experienced several events of homophobic abuse on a single day. In response, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the site of each occurrence and document it – the project has since grown to include incidents reported by other people across the world. “I place the plants there but they fade quickly,” says Harfleet. “Apparently birds consume them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

He picked the bloom not just for the clear connection – 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 terrible thing,” he says.

The project on Remember Nature day is to sow flowers at fresh spots and also refresh the memorials in places he has honored before, all the while conversing with those on the itinerant journey about the events and his memories of them. “I’ve recorded quite a few since I last planted,” he says with regret.

Progressing Optimistically

He desires his work – and