Creatives Respond In the Face of the Environmental Crisis: Cultivating the Apple That Dropped on Newton's Head

During 2015, creative and campaigner Gustav Metzger initiated one of his final major projects. Known for introducing auto-destructive art, Metzger had dedicated his life to addressing human struggles from anti-nuclear advocacy to ethical eating. Through a short video message, he requested support for a international event to celebrate the natural world.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your engagement in this international summons for a day of action to remember nature on the fourth of November, 2015,” he stated, inviting artists and creatives to oppose the continuing disappearance of flora and fauna. “Our responsibility is to make audiences aware of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so the arts will venture into domains that are naturally imaginative.”

The Creation of Remember Nature

And so Remember Nature came into being, a day when artists across the country developed works to the ongoing environmental crisis. Jo Joelson, who cared for Metzger in his later life, notes his drive for action. “There was a strong sense of urgency for him at the close of his days,” she says. “I just said – let’s not mess around. No need to pause for sponsorship or for anyone to green light this. Take action immediately.”

After Ten Years

Ten years later, the initiative hasn’t quite sparked the widespread change across the arts that Metzger had dreamed of, but Joelson believes its legacy can still be felt in movements like artist-led declarations and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how artists approach the environmental impact of their methods. For this purpose she is relaunching it to commemorate its 10-year anniversary. Part of the featured creators taking part currently are A Man Called Adam and prominent artists. They have all designed posters, shared messages, and produced installations set to be unveiled on November 4, 2025.

Sowing Change

In conversation with the artist, she is out in a field in a rural area, assisting with planting apple trees that will create a spiral-shaped orchard. Working with schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and somewhat instructive. She describes, the preparation and sowing sessions have already involved learning about maths (calculating the gaps in the orchard), biology (studying the genetic makeup), and origins (tracing the backgrounds of how distinct varieties arrived in Britain).

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

“Many of the apples were chosen because they’ve got humorous titles such as the other unusual varieties,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that produces red juice. Each has stories behind them. The historical cultivar was introduced by the Romans. The Flower of Kent 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 environment and the influence we have over it. “In their experience, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was urging them, on their next shopping trip, to check the packaging and see their names and their origin. Perhaps it indicates Kent!”

Creative Initiatives Across the Country

Within the city, a participant’s Book of Loss will involve participants looking through an art institution on a quest to find the frozen formations that have been vanished in modern times. All formations will be drawn on the museum surfaces using ultraviolet markers. When located, a bell will ring and a performance will be performed to commemorate that specific ice mass.

Meanwhile, up in Barrow-in-Furness, a creative will be hosting a public show about our disconnection from the land, as well as organizing a community dinner, prepared with sustainable ingredients. Over in Newcastle, a participant is streaming her environmental performance, in which community vocalists undertake a task to sing plants back to health in a local park.

Young Insights

Like Gallaccio, Cornelia Parker will be working with schoolchildren – on the scheduled date she is hoping 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 compelling because they’re not as trammelled as grown-ups’,” she says in her public appeal. “The contributions of youth to the world is something distinctive and hopefully it will stimulate a sense of responsibility from each person. Children are innocent. They have anxieties about what’s next. But let’s not make it about worry – it should be about positivity and us ensuring that they have a tomorrow.”

Remembrance and Reflection

A participant’s work also connects with children. Drawing on past experience, his feathered initiative involves sketching winged creatures and then embodying them – and for the initiative he is intending to address an iconic figure. He is also conducting a itinerant journey of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his Pansy Project over the last two decades. The project started after he experienced three incidents of discrimination on a particular day. As a reaction, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the spot where it happened and photograph it – the project has since spiralled to incorporate experiences reported by other people across the world. “I place the plants there but they are temporary,” says Harfleet. “Apparently pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a short-lived memorial.”

The artist selected the pansy not just for the obvious reason – it has long been a term of homophobic abuse – but also because its origin is the French verb, penser, to think. “People connected it with a man who is reflective, and that, of course, is a negative trait,” he says.

The project on the event day is to sow flowers at fresh spots and also replant flowers in places he has marked earlier, all the while conversing with those on the walking tour about the incidents and his personal experiences. “There’s been quite a few following earlier installations,” he says with regret.

Progressing Optimistically

Harfleet hopes his work – and