Cultural Figures Respond Against the Planetary Crisis: Sowing the Apple That Dropped on Isaac Newton's Head

During 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger launched one of his last important works. Recognized for introducing self-destructive creations, Metzger had dedicated his life to addressing global challenges from anti-nuclear advocacy to plant-based living. In a brief video message, he issued a call for a international event to remember nature.

“I call upon you for your participation in this worldwide call for a day of action to commemorate our planet on the fourth of November, 2015,” he declared, urging cultural workers to resist the continuing disappearance of living beings. “Our task is to help the public recall of the diversity and intricacy in nature … and by doing so art will enter territories that are naturally imaginative.”

The Birth of Nature Remembrance

And so the Nature Remembrance initiative was established, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain produced pieces to the escalating planetary emergency. An organizer, who supported Metzger in his later life, recalls his drive for action. “I sensed a great sense of urgency for him at the close of his days,” she says. “I urged him – we must act now. We shouldn’t hold back for funding or for anyone to authorize this. We should proceed.”

A Decade Later

Ten years later, the initiative hasn’t quite sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had dreamed of, but Joelson believes its impact can still be seen in initiatives like Culture Declares and climate activism networks, as well as in how creatives consider the eco-friendliness of their work. For this purpose she is relaunching it to celebrate its 10-year anniversary. Included in the 18 lead artists taking part currently are A Man Called Adam and Anya Gallaccio. Each has designed posters, recorded calls to action, and created artworks set to be revealed on November 4, 2025.

Cultivating Awareness

When speaking to Anya Gallaccio, she is out in a field in the countryside, helping plant apple trees that will grow to form a spiral-shaped orchard. Collaborating with schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and somewhat instructive. As she explains, the preparation and sowing sessions have already included learning about measurements (spacing the planting intervals), science (discussing the apple’s DNA), and history (mapping the journeys of how distinct varieties came to the UK).

Many of the apples were selected because they’ve got amusing labels such as the Bloody Butcher. We have one apple that produces red juice

“Several the apples were chosen because they’ve got amusing labels such as the other unusual varieties,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that releases scarlet-colored sap. They all have stories behind them. The decio apple was brought over by the Romans. The local breed is the apple that descended from a tree and struck the physicist’s head.”

The artist aimed the children to be more consciously engaged of the environment and the influence we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you get at a supermarket, so I was prompting them, next time they were out, to check the packaging and see the variety and the source. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Artistic Responses Across the Country

Within the city, one artist’s project on disappearance will involve participants looking through a major gallery on a quest to find the frozen formations that have been vanished in recent years. All formations will be depicted on the gallery’s windows and walls using special pens. Each discovery, a alert will occur and a recitation will be conducted to commemorate that particular glacier.

At the same time, up in a northern town, a creative will be putting on a free exhibition about our separation from nature, as well as organizing a communal feast, made using organic, local produce. Further north, a participant is streaming her musical project, in which regional performers undertake a task to sing plants back to health in a green space.

Youth Perspectives

Following this approach, another participant will be collaborating with schoolchildren – on the actual event she is hoping to cover a cultural venue in children’s artwork that capture their dreams and worries for the years ahead. “Children’s words and images are compelling because they’re not as restricted as adults’,” she says in her public appeal. “What children have to offer to the world is something quite unique and hopefully it will inspire a feeling of duty from each person. Youth is pure. They have concerns for tomorrow. But this shouldn’t be about anxiety – it should be about hope and our responsibility that they get a future.”

Remembrance and Reflection

A participant’s work also appeals to children. Drawing on past experience, his avian project involves drawing birds and then dressing up as them – and for the event he is planning to represent Liverpool’s famous Liver bird. He is also staging a guided walk of the city, stopping at places that have been part of his ongoing series over the recent decades. This endeavor began when he endured several events of homophobic abuse on a particular day. As a reaction, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the site of each occurrence and record it – the project has since expanded to cover events reported by other people across the world. “The flowers remain there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “Reportedly pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

The artist selected 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. “It became associated with a man who is thoughtful, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The plan on the event day is to plant pansies at additional sites and also renew the tributes in places he has honored before, all the while talking to those on the guided walk about the occurrences and his memories of them. “There’s been quite a few following earlier installations,” he says with regret.

Moving Forward with Hope

Harfleet hopes his work – and