Remember Nature 2025

4 November 2025
Manchester

Remember Nature 2025 was a regional day of action. Castlefield gallery, working with our commissioned artist Yu-Chen Wang, was on of the 17 Cultural partners across the UK.

On 4 November 2015 the artist Gustav Metzger (1926–2017), a child refugee from the Nazis, put out a worldwide call for artists (and others) to Remember Nature: to bring ethics into aesthetics and “to make a stand against the ongoing erasure of species”.

Commemorating the 10th anniversary of Metzger’s call, Remember Nature 2025 was a nationwide day of art action to stand up for nature that drew on Metzger’s hope and belief in the future power of art to halt universal extinction. It was curated with Metzger’s original collaborators Jo Joelson and Andrea Gregson and regional art partners across England: Art Gene, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, CAST, Castlefield Gallery, De La Warr Pavilion, FACT, Hatton Gallery, Hauser & Wirth, Homotopia, Ikon Gallery, KARST, Kestle Barton, Kettle’s Yard, MIMA, Serpentine, Tate Modern, Turner Contemporary.

Castlefield Gallery worked with lead artist Yu-Chen Wang to produce a poster, a “call-to-action” film and a place-specific “Day of Action to Remember Nature” event, working with local communities and groups to create artistic and public interventions to “remember nature”.

Call To Action

Day of Action

Yu-Chen Wang’s Remember Nature event on 4 November involved a series of artist-led and self-led walking routes including:

The Nature Remembered Walk hosted Yu-Chen from the Derek Jarman Pocket Park at Manchester Art Gallery to Hulme Community Garden Centre
The Nature Remembered Gathering at Hulme Community garden Centre

As well as a series of walks and workshops at Platt Fields and Hall initiated by Castlefield Gallery’s SPARK Network artist Phil Barton, including a walk from Platt Fields to Hulme led by local eco-activist Jane Morris.

Those on the walks were invited to explore Manchester’s ever-changing landscape: the natural environment, layers of histories, and the legacy of industry – all deeply intertwined. Together, attendees had the opportunity to discover these interconnections, to gather stories, share reflections, and spark ideas.

All walks led to the Nature Remembered Gathering at Hulme Community Garden Centre, where we shared delicious hot refreshments and spent a couple of hours together, informally exploring the question: “What can we do to support nature?” We invited community groups, environmental scientists, campaigners, artists and others to contribute and share their knowledge, skills and ideas in a variety of ways.

The contributors were:

Abundance Project, Tudor Baker (Manchester City Council Climate Change Officer), Cherry Chung, Circular City, Ethical Consumer, Friends of Ryebank Fields, Grass Routes Movement, Antony Hall, Helmut Lemke, Let’s Talk Clean Air Whalley Range, Mums For Lungs, Northern Roots, Pathways to Land, RSPB Dovestone, Scott Pedley, Sustainable Communities Hulme, Vegan Organic Network, Your Home Better

Please see our Contributors doc for more info on the contributors.

The afternoon also featured a film screening at Venture Arts Studio 53 and the Nature Narratives pop-up exhibition.

Studio 53 Film Screening

A screening of artists’ film and video featuring nature and climate aware works, made by artists and projects including Venture Arts’ Emelia Hewitt and Malik Jama, as well as artists Jocelyn McGregor, Gregory Herbert, Katy McGahan and Let’s Talk Clean Air Whalley Range.

Nature Narratives

Students on the BA Photography programme at Manchester Metropolitan University presented a range of photographic works and materials that explore human connections and interactions with nature, highlighting the importance of nurturing environmental awareness.

Work included Land Matters, an ongoing collaborative project by BA Photography students and staff on the programme. During a week-long April residency in Edale, participants researched, reacted and responded to the Peak District landscape and their place within it. Through communal making and low-impact analogue practices—including camera-less and traditional formats – they generated work in dialogue with environmental and ecological concerns and the Anthropocene, while experimentally pushing photographic boundaries in a slow, symbiotic process.

Works included publications, digital prints (considering methods of production that include re-use and recycling), analogue prints, and cyanotypes. Materials were exhibited in multiple settings, considering the life and value of physical works. The materiality of the environment was communicated through the inclusion of artefacts found on residency in Edale, staff and students’ custodians of materials to be returned on subsequent Land Matters visits.

Hulme Community Garden Centre

The gathering was hosted at Hulme Community Garden Centre (HCGC), a unique community-led not-for-profit project established 20 years ago with a mission to bring communities together through gardening. Underpinned by organic principles. HCGC promotes sustainability through best horticultural practice and a respect for the environment, encouraging a wide and diverse range of wildlife into their 2 acre site

HCGC provides volunteering opportunities for individuals and groups, promoting a sense of well-being and offering benefits to health through enjoyment of its safe, inclusive and inspiring space.

You can find out more about volunteering at HCGC here

Venture Arts

Venture Arts is an award-winning visual arts organisation working with learning disabled artists. Through its studio programmes, exhibitions and collaborative projects, Venture Arts removes barriers to the arts, championing neurodiversity and providing pathways for every individual to develop their creative identity.

Venture Arts equips people to succeed as artists, advocates, cultural workers, educators, curators and critics.