‘We’ve planted the apple that fell on Newton’s head’: the artists striking back against the climate emergency

Part art, part educational workshop … Anya Gallaccio in her Kent orchard with her helpers. Photograph: Edward Thompson/Edward Thompson courtesy of Turner Contemporary

Back in 2015, well into the twilight of his life, the artist and activist Gustav Metzger decided to embark on one last big project. Best known as the inventor of auto-destructive art – a response, he said, to the destructive horrors of the Holocaust – Metzger had also, over the course of a long career, been an inspirational teacher to Pete Townshend of the Who and campaigned for numerous causes including nuclear disarmament and vegetarianism. Now, on a video message barely three minutes long, he was making one final plea.

“I, Gustav Metzger, am asking for your participation in this worldwide call for a day of action to remember nature on November 4th, 2015,” he began, appealing to creatives to take a stand against the ongoing erasure of species. “Our task is to remind people of the richness and complexity in nature … and by doing so art will enter territories that are inherently creative.”