Cultural Figures Fight Back Against the Planetary Crisis: Sowing the Apple That Fell on Isaac Newton's Head

Back in 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his ultimate important works. Known for pioneering auto-destructive art, Metzger had spent a lifetime to confronting human struggles from peace activism to vegetarianism. Through a short video message, he requested support for a international event to honor the environment.

“I call upon you for your involvement in this international summons for a day of action to remember nature on 4 November 2015,” he announced, urging makers and thinkers to stand against the continuing disappearance of living beings. “The mission is to help the public recall of the diversity and intricacy in nature … and by doing so art will enter realms that are naturally imaginative.”

The Creation of Nature Remembrance

And so Remember Nature was born, a day when creatives nationwide produced pieces to the escalating planetary emergency. An organizer, who supported Metzger in his last days, notes his feeling of immediacy. “He had a strong sense of urgency for him at the close of his days,” she says. “I just said – let’s not mess around. We shouldn’t hold back for financial support or for anyone to approve this. Let’s just do it.”

Ten Years On

A decade on, Remember Nature did not triggered the broad uprising across the arts that Metzger had hoped for, but Joelson believes its influence can still be felt in initiatives like Culture Declares and environmental protests, as well as in how creatives consider the environmental impact of their work. For this purpose she is relaunching it to celebrate its decade milestone. Included in the key participants taking part currently are Yu-Chen Wang and other notable figures. Each has designed posters, made video appeals, and produced installations set to be presented on November 4, 2025.

Cultivating Awareness

When speaking to one participant, she is working outdoors in the countryside, assisting with planting apple trees that will develop into a coiled garden. Engaging schoolchildren, her project is half artwork and part learning experience. According to her, the design and cultivation sessions have already incorporated learning about measurements (measuring out the distances between trees), biology (exploring the hereditary traits), and origins (mapping the stories of how distinct varieties arrived in Britain).

Several the apples were selected because they’ve got funny names such as the other unusual varieties. We have one apple that produces crimson liquid

“A lot of the apples were chosen because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Bloody Butcher,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ crimson liquid. They all have histories attached. The historical cultivar was introduced by the Romans. The Kentish variety is the apple that dropped off a tree and struck the scientist’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more consciously engaged of the environment and the control we have over it. “To many of them, apples were just things you get at a supermarket, so I was urging them, next time they were out, to check the packaging and see their names and the source. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Nationwide

In London, Youngsook Choi’s project on disappearance will engage visitors searching an art institution on a journey to find the ice masses that have been disappeared in modern times. All formations will be drawn on the gallery’s windows and walls using invisible ink. Whenever one is found, a bell will ring and a recitation will be conducted to commemorate that particular glacier.

Meanwhile, up in another location, an artist will be putting on a free exhibition about our separation from nature, as well as organizing a community dinner, made using regional food. Further north, a participant is streaming her environmental performance, in which regional performers embark on a mission to use music to heal flora in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Children’s Voices

Similar to other artists, another participant will be engaging schoolchildren – on the day itself she is planning to fill an art space in kids’ letters and drawings that document their aspirations and concerns for the years ahead. “Children’s words and images are powerful because they’re not as inhibited as adults’,” she says in her call to action video. “What children have to offer to the world is something quite unique and it may provoke a feeling of duty from everyone. Youth is pure. They have concerns for tomorrow. But this shouldn’t be about worry – it should be about optimism and us ensuring that they see a better world.”

Memorials and Memory

Another artist’s work also connects with children. Drawing on past experience, his avian project involves drawing birds and then performing as birds – and for the event he is intending to tackle a local symbol. He is also organizing a walking tour of the city, stopping at places that have been part of his long-term work over the past twenty years. The project began when he endured multiple occurrences of discrimination 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 expanded to cover events reported by other people across the world. “The flowers remain there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “Apparently pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a short-lived memorial.”

Harfleet chose the pansy not just for the obvious reason – it has long been a slur – but also because its name derives 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 intention on the event day is to place blooms at fresh spots and also refresh the memorials in places he has honored before, all the while talking to those on the itinerant journey about the events and his memories of them. “There’s been quite a few after my previous work,” he says mournfully.

Advancing Positively

The artist wishes his work – and