Artists Respond Against the Planetary Crisis: Sowing the Fruit That Fell on Isaac Newton's Head

Back in 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his final important works. Famed for creating auto-destructive art, Metzger had spent a lifetime to addressing global challenges from nuclear disarmament to vegetarianism. In a brief video message, he issued a call for a international event to honor the environment.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your involvement in this international summons for a day of action to commemorate our planet on 4 November 2015,” he declared, urging cultural workers to stand against the steady eradication of living beings. “Our task is to remind people of the abundance and sophistication in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into domains that are inherently creative.”

The Birth of Remember Nature

In this way the Nature Remembrance initiative came into being, a day when creatives nationwide developed works to the unfolding climate catastrophe. Jo Joelson, who supported Metzger in his final years, recalls his feeling of immediacy. “He had a great sense of urgency for him at the final chapter,” she says. “I urged him – let’s not mess around. We shouldn’t hold back for financial support or for anyone to green light this. We should proceed.”

After Ten Years

After ten years, the project did not sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had dreamed of, but organizers feel its influence can still be seen in movements like cultural advocacy groups and environmental protests, as well as in how artists approach the eco-friendliness of their methods. This is the reason she is reviving it to commemorate its ten-year mark. Among the key participants taking part currently are Yu-Chen Wang and prominent artists. They have all produced imagery, recorded calls to action, and created artworks set to be revealed on the fourth of November next year.

Planting Hope

In conversation with the artist, she is working outdoors in a rural area, assisting with planting apple trees that will create a spiral-shaped orchard. Engaging schoolchildren, her project is part creative piece and somewhat instructive. According to her, the design and cultivation sessions have already included learning about mathematics (spacing the distances between trees), science (exploring the apple’s DNA), and history (researching the journeys of how different apples came to the UK).

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,” says Gallaccio. “We have one apple that releases crimson liquid. They all have background narratives. The historical cultivar was introduced by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that dropped off a tree and struck Isaac Newton’s head.”

The artist aimed the children to be more thoughtfully connected of the environment and the power we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you buy from a supermarket, so I was urging them, when they go shopping, to check the packaging and see the variety and where they were grown. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Cultural Projects Nationwide

In London, Youngsook Choi’s work about extinction will involve participants searching a major gallery on a quest to find the seven major glaciers that have been lost in the past decade. All formations will be drawn on the exhibition spaces using special pens. Each discovery, a chime will sound and a performance will be held to commemorate that particular glacier.

Elsewhere, up in Barrow-in-Furness, a creative will be putting on a open display about our disconnection from the land, as well as organizing a shared meal, prepared with organic, local produce. Further north, an artist is sharing her musical project, in which regional performers embark on a mission to use music to heal flora in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Children’s Voices

Like Gallaccio, another participant will be engaging schoolchildren – on the scheduled date she is hoping to cover a cultural venue in youth creations that express their aspirations and concerns for the future. “Children’s words and images are impactful because they’re not as trammelled as adults’,” she says in her call to action video. “What children have to offer to the world is something distinctive and perhaps it can inspire a awareness of obligation from each person. Kids are unbiased. They have anxieties about what’s next. But let’s not make it about worry – it should be about hope and us ensuring that they get a future.”

Remembrance and Reflection

A participant’s work also resonates for children. With a background in performance, his avian project involves illustrating avians and then performing as birds – and for the initiative he is aiming to tackle Liverpool’s famous Liver bird. He is also staging a guided walk of the city, exploring locations that have been part of his Pansy Project over the past twenty years. The project started after he experienced multiple occurrences of homophobic abuse on a one occasion. In response, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the location of every incident and record it – the project has since spiralled to include incidents shared by other people across the world. “The flowers remain there but they fade quickly,” says Harfleet. “Reportedly 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 slur – but also because its origin is the French verb, penser, to think. “People connected it with a man who is thoughtful, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The project on the event day is to sow flowers at additional sites and also replant flowers in places he has marked earlier, all the while discussing with those on the guided walk about the occurrences and his personal experiences. “There’s been quite a few since I last planted,” he says sadly.

Advancing Positively

The artist wishes his work – and