1,000 People Become a Giant Clock at Schiphol Airport

Dutch designer Maarten Baas has turned nearly 1000 people into the moving hands of a giant clock at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport.

Installed in Lounge 1, The People’s Clock is a 2.5-metre cube showing a 12-hour performance filmed from above.

Groups of people form the hour and minute hands, moving together as time passes. One person runs around the edge of the clock every minute to mark the seconds.

A very simple idea, with a pretty massive execution behind it.

An airport powered by people

Many of the participants are Schiphol employees, from baggage handlers and security staff to cleaning teams.

It’s a nice detail, because the whole concept reflects how an airport actually works. From the outside, everything feels automated and precise. Behind the scenes, though, it’s thousands of people keeping things moving.

The performance was filmed inside one of Schiphol’s hangars, which was turned into a huge set for the project. Between filming sessions, participants could take part in activities like yoga, games and screen-printing workshops.

Turning time into a human performance

The People’s Clock is part of Maarten Baas’ long-running Real Time series, which he started in 2009.

Schiphol already has another of his clocks, created in 2016, where a man appears to paint and erase the hands of the clock minute by minute.

This new version takes the same idea and blows it up completely.

Instead of one person keeping time, there are almost 1,000.

And in an airport packed with digital screens, that very human approach is probably what makes the clock so hard to ignore.

Bravo

Credits

Maarten Baas

25 August 2026