Artists Fight Back In the Face of the Climate Emergency: Sowing the Fruit That Fell on Isaac Newton's Head

In 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his final significant endeavors. Famed for introducing auto-destructive art, Metzger had spent a lifetime to responding to societal issues from anti-nuclear advocacy to ethical eating. Via a concise video message, he issued a call for a international event to honor the environment.

“I call upon you for your participation in this international summons for a day of action to commemorate our planet on November 4th, 2015,” he stated, urging artists and creatives to oppose the continuing disappearance of species. “Our task is to remind people of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore domains that are naturally imaginative.”

The Creation of Environmental Reflection

Thus the Nature Remembrance initiative came into being, a day when creatives nationwide produced pieces to the unfolding climate catastrophe. One of the curators, who worked closely with Metzger in his later life, recalls his sense of urgency. “I sensed a strong sense of urgency for him at the close of his days,” she says. “I urged him – let’s not mess around. We shouldn’t hold back for financial support or for anyone to authorize this. We should proceed.”

Ten Years On

Ten years later, the project may not have sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but supporters think its influence can still be observed in campaigns like Culture Declares and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how creatives consider the sustainability of their practices. For this purpose she is restaging it to celebrate its decade milestone. Among the 18 lead artists participating now are Yu-Chen Wang and Anya Gallaccio. All participants have designed posters, recorded calls to action, and created artworks set to be revealed on November 4, 2025.

Cultivating Awareness

In conversation with Anya Gallaccio, she is on site in a rural area, cultivating apple trees that will develop into a spiral-shaped orchard. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and half educational workshop. According to her, the planning and planting sessions have already incorporated learning about measurements (spacing the planting intervals), biology (exploring the genetic makeup), and origins (researching the backgrounds of how different apples were introduced to England).

A lot of the apples were chosen because they’ve got humorous titles such as the other unusual varieties. We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ red juice

“Several the apples were selected because they’ve got humorous titles such as the other unusual varieties,” says Gallaccio. “We have one apple that produces crimson liquid. They all have histories attached. The decio apple was brought over by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that dropped off a tree and landed on Isaac Newton’s head.”

The artist aimed the children to be more consciously engaged of the natural world and the control we have over it. “To many of them, apples were just things you get at a supermarket, so I was encouraging them, on their next shopping trip, to check the packaging and see what they’re called and their origin. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Cultural Projects Nationwide

In London, one artist’s work about extinction will involve participants exploring an art institution on a mission to find the frozen formations that have been lost in the past decade. Each glacier will be depicted on the museum surfaces using special pens. Whenever one is found, a bell will ring and a recitation will be performed to commemorate that individual formation.

Elsewhere, up in a northern town, Maddi Nicholson will be hosting a public show about our disconnection from the land, as well as organizing a communal feast, made using organic, local produce. In another city, a participant is sharing her environmental performance, in which local singers undertake a task to use music to heal flora in a green space.

Young Insights

Like Gallaccio, Cornelia Parker will be engaging schoolchildren – on the day itself she is aiming to fill a cultural venue in children’s artwork that capture their dreams and worries for the tomorrow. “Youthful expressions are powerful because they’re not as restricted as mature perspectives,” she says in her call to action video. “What children have to offer to the world is something quite unique and perhaps it can provoke a awareness of obligation from everyone. Youth is pure. They have anxieties about what’s next. But it isn’t meant to be about worry – it should be about hope and our responsibility that they get a future.”

Remembrance and Reflection

A participant’s work also connects with children. Drawing on past experience, his feathered initiative involves illustrating avians and then embodying them – and for the initiative he is aiming to address an iconic figure. He is also conducting a itinerant journey of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his ongoing series over the last two decades. The project started after he experienced three incidents of homophobic abuse on a single day. To counter this, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the spot where it happened and document it – the project has since spiralled to incorporate experiences experienced by other people across the world. “The flowers remain there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “It seems pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

He picked the bloom not just for the obvious reason – it has long been a slur – but also because its etymology comes from the French verb, penser, to think. “It was linked to a man who is reflective, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The plan on the event day is to sow flowers at fresh spots and also renew the tributes in places he has honored before, all the while conversing with those on the guided walk about the occurrences and his memories of them. “We’ve seen quite a few since I last planted,” he says sadly.

Advancing Positively

He desires his work – and