Creatives Respond Against the Climate Emergency: Planting the Apple That Dropped on Newton's Head

Back in 2015, visionary and advocate Gustav Metzger initiated one of his last major projects. Known for pioneering art that erases itself, Metzger had dedicated his life to addressing societal issues from anti-nuclear advocacy to ethical eating. In a brief video message, he requested support for a worldwide initiative to honor the environment.

“This is my appeal for your involvement in this international summons for a day of action to reflect on the environment on 4 November 2015,” he announced, encouraging artists and creatives to stand against the continuing disappearance of flora and fauna. “The mission is to help the public recall of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so art will enter territories that are naturally imaginative.”

The Inception of Nature Remembrance

And so the environmental art day was established, a day when cultural practitioners throughout Britain created responses to the escalating planetary emergency. One of the curators, who cared for Metzger in his last days, recalls his feeling of immediacy. “I sensed a profound sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “I just said – let’s not mess around. No need to pause for funding or for anyone to authorize this. We should proceed.”

Ten Years On

A decade on, the project did not incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had envisioned, but Joelson believes its impact can still be felt in initiatives like cultural advocacy groups and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how creatives consider the eco-friendliness of their methods. For this purpose she is reviving it to celebrate its decade milestone. Among the 18 lead artists participating now are Cornelia Parker and prominent artists. Each has produced imagery, recorded calls to action, and created artworks set to be revealed on November 4, 2025.

Sowing Change

Interviewing the artist, she is out in a field in the countryside, cultivating apple trees that will create a coiled garden. Working with schoolchildren, her project is part creative piece and half educational workshop. As she explains, the preparation and sowing sessions have already involved learning about mathematics (measuring out the distances between trees), science (studying the apple’s DNA), and geography (mapping the stories of how various cultivars came to the UK).

Several the apples were picked because they’ve got amusing labels such as the other unusual varieties. We have one apple that produces scarcolored sap

“A lot of the apples were picked because they’ve got humorous titles such as the Bloody Butcher,” says Gallaccio. “We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ scarlet-colored sap. Every one carries background narratives. The ancient variety was brought over by the Romans. The local breed is the apple that dropped off a tree and landed on Isaac Newton’s head.”

She hoped the children to be more actively aware of nature and the influence we have over it. “For a lot of them, apples were just things you buy from a supermarket, so I was prompting them, when they go shopping, to look on the bag and see the variety and their origin. Hopefully it says Kent!”

Cultural Projects Throughout Britain

Within the city, Youngsook Choi’s Book of Loss will include attendees looking through Tate Modern on a journey to find the ice masses that have been disappeared in recent years. All formations will be illustrated on the museum surfaces using special pens. When located, a chime will sound and a reading will be held to commemorate that particular glacier.

At the same time, up in Barrow-in-Furness, an artist will be putting on a public show about our alienation from the environment, as well as hosting a community dinner, made using organic, local produce. Further north, an artist is broadcasting her Some Kind of Love / Forest Choir, in which community vocalists begin a project to perform for vegetation in a local park.

Children’s Voices

Like Gallaccio, Cornelia Parker will be working with schoolchildren – on the actual event she is aiming to fill a cultural venue in youth creations that capture their hopes and fears for the future. “Children’s words and images are compelling because they’re not as trammelled as grown-ups’,” she says in her recorded message. “What children have to offer to the world is something distinctive and hopefully it will inspire a sense of responsibility from each person. Kids are unbiased. They have concerns for tomorrow. But it isn’t meant to be about fear – it should be about hope and making sure that they get a future.”

Remembrance and Reflection

Another artist’s work also resonates for children. As a former drag queen, his avian project involves illustrating avians and then embodying them – and for the event he is intending to represent a local symbol. He is also organizing a itinerant journey of the city, stopping at places that have been part of his Pansy Project over the last two decades. The project began when he endured three incidents of homophobic abuse on a one occasion. In response, Harfleet decided to place a bloom at the spot where it happened and photograph it – the project has since grown to cover events shared by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “Apparently pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a short-lived memorial.”

The artist selected the bloom not just for the obvious reason – it has long been a term of homophobic abuse – 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 plan on 4 November is to place blooms at additional sites and also refresh the memorials in places he has previously memorialised, all the while conversing with those on the guided walk about the events and his memories of them. “We’ve seen quite a few after my previous work,” he says mournfully.

Advancing Positively

Harfleet hopes his work – and