Day of Action to Remember Nature
The 4th of November 2019 was the fourth anniversary of the original Call for Artists to Remember Nature issued by artist Gustav Metzger (1927 – 2017) on The Street at Central Saint Martins. Initiated and curated by MAAS graduate Phil Barton. 20 students from courses across the College and beyond took part in a Day of Action on The Street.
REMEMBER NATURE MANIFESTO
Nature no longer exists separate from humankind – humans have altered every part of Nature throughout the Earth.
Humankind cannot exist without Nature.
In this post-industrial, post-truth global society we have forgotten this. We have embarked on our own auto-destructive process. When the disintegrative process is complete, humankind will have been removed from the planet and scrapped. Nature will re-assert herself and set about countering the human driven sixth great extinction and, over millennia, the Anthropocene age will be superseded in the geological record by new eras.
Remember Nature.
Humankind can choose instead to adopt an auto-creative, ecological approach to Nature. One where we work alongside the other than human world; where we value all life on this planet and not just our own; where our reason, technologies and behaviours align with Nature and do not seek to dominate.
The artist must lead the way. Auto-creative art is the art of change, movement, growth – the art of Nature. Our ‘Pale Blue Dot’ – a speck of dust in the vastness of the cosmos – becomes the focus of our art, our society, our economy, our science. We create with Nature. We do not ignore, dominate, extinguish Nature.
Auto-creative art honours and respects Nature. It challenges dominant political, religious, economic, media and academic paradigms which ignore, override or devalue Nature.
Auto-creative ecological art Remembers Nature.
This took place at:
Central Saint Martins London 4th November 2019
Islington Mill Manchester/Salford 4th November 2017
In Memoriam Gustav Metzger, Auto-Destructive Artist