Curator Klaus Littmann imagines a future where forests only exist inside stadiums, like animals in a zoo, in his upcoming installation, For Forest.
Littmann is working with Enea Landscape Architecture on the installation, which will see 300 trees planted across the pitch of Wörthersee Stadion, home of football team Austria Klagenfurt.
Billed as Austria's largest public art installation, For Forest will only be visible to those inside the stadium.
Littmann, a contemporary art specialist based in Basel, decided to bring this surreal project to fruition after finding a drawing by Austrian artist and architect Max Peintner, named The Unending Attraction of Nature.
The drawing shows a forest at the centre of a running track ringed by a stadium full of spectators, with a smoky, factory-filled city in the background. For Forest is Littmann's effort to bring the artwork to life.
Enea Landscape Architecture will carefully transport and plant the 300 trees onto the football pitch. The species of plants have been carefully chosen to resemble a central European forest. Once they are in situ they will continue to grow and change colour as the season passes.
For Forest is due to be on show from 9 September to 27 October 2019, so visitors will be able to watch the full display of shifting autumn leaves.
Wörthersee Stadion seats 30,000 and will be open from 10am to 10pm every day. The trees will also be floodlight after dark, so people can see the trees even if they visit in the evenings.
After the installation is over the trees will be carefully replanted on a site close to the stadium. There are also plans for a pavilion to be built to document the project, although visuals for this have not yet been released.
Another tree-themed installation happened at Burning Man festival in the US in 2017. Dutch designers Studio Drift collaborated with artist Zachary Smith to create a tree that responded with patterns of light to people's heartbeats as they sat in its branches.