Maarten Baas uses a forest as a canvas, and Google Earth as its gallery

Dutch designer Maarten Baas has revealed plans to plant an entire forest for his next work, The New Forest, to be viewed on Google Earth or via drones. By arranging trees according to the colours of their leaves, the forest will eventually show an enormous “New!” symbol, across a plot of land the size of 180 football fields.

If realised, the epic piece – which makes Neil Buchanan’s Art Attacks pale in comparison – will be fully grown by 2216 and change into different colour combinations with each season. Exhibited during Milan Design Week in collaboration with the Groninger Museum, the piece explores society’s use of new techniques for seeing the earth from above, considering “the planet as a sculpture, or a canopy as a canvas,” says Maarten.

The designer also aims to challenge the public’s obsession with the new, and what that means today, in his typically comical and ironic style. In questioning what is actually “new”, Maarten says he realised he “couldn’t tell the difference between a second and a century or a short hype and an everlasting change. But I’m pretty sure I made something ‘new’ here!”

The 100 hectare site will exist on Flevoland, a man-made island in the Netherlands, and be orchestrated by Staatsbosbeheer, The Netherlands Forestry Commission.