What I learned from posing naked to Spencer Tunick’s lens
On the 28th of March, in one of the WhatsApp groups that I’m in, someone posted that the photographer Spencer Tunick — famous for its pictures of crowds of naked people — would be shooting in Valencia, in a couple days, and whomever would like to be part of it just had to sign up. If you know me, you also know that I’m not ruled by pudor. My first thought was “this might be a memorable experience” and after that I realised how cold it would be. I enrolled without further ado (this experience’s potential was bigger than the apprehension of freezing my butt off). Then I shared the news with some friends that promptly expressed their lack of courage to do such thing, and with my boyfriend that would make up his mind later. Minutes later I received an email confirming my participation as well as the time and place of the event. This last detail made me rethink about the weather.
I could feel some nervousness in the air, many people came in groups, others were alone just like me.
At 5am, on the 30th of March (Saturday), there I was standing at this building’s door where the event would take place. There were many people, more than I was expecting, from all age ranges (from 18 to 80 years old), mostly between 25 and 45 years old. I could feel some nervousness in the air, many people came in groups, others were alone just like me.
Finally the cultural center’s doors were opened and two people showed up to give instructions to all participants. One of those instructions was to separate men and women into two different groups and each one should wait for further instructions in a central cloister. Woman stayed in the first cloister and men proceeded to the next one.
Already in the women’s cloister, I observed what was going on around me. Looking at the people I started to wonder what would be their motivation to be there. Perhaps they were very curious to experience such art installation, maybe they were willing to get out of their comfort zone, or to do something unusual and different from their weekend routines, maybe they felt the urge to know how does it feel to have nudity as a dress code or possibly they were just interested in testing themselves to know how comfortable they were in their own bodies. There could be thousands of reasons but the truth is that all the purposes I could think of were the ones that made me decide to do such thing.
You could feel the excitement in the air. The atmosphere was enthusiastic, with a great vibe, everybody seemed to be in a high spirit and ready to spend a cheerful and different morning. Meanwhile Jose (my boyfriend) arrived and we briefly greeted (reminding that men and women should be separated).
More than one hour later, we got the last instructions. This time to explain about the pictures, what poses were required and timing to leave the cloister. 15 minutes remained to the moment where we all needed to undress, leaving our clothes and personal belongings behind and leave the building to the middle of the street, completely naked and barefoot. The temperature remained low and the sun was now raising. Some people started jumping to warm up their bodies, others started to undress, maybe to get used to it. I kept chatting with other women.
When it came to the crunch, staff members from the organisation informed us that that was the moment to take off our clothes and proceed to the exit. Despite many people being already naked by this moment, and most of us got undressed in 30 seconds, it seemed like we all waited for someone to take the lead to leave the premises. The woman with whom I was chatting at that moment and myself looked at each other and without saying a single word (but already thinking “why not us?”) proceeded to the exit where staff members awaited to bring us to the first location for the photo session. A third woman joined us.
Suddenly, the three of us looked behind and realised that we were already in the middle of the street, spearheading hundreds of other naked women.
Suddenly, the three of us looked behind and realised that we were already in the middle of the street, spearheading hundreds of other naked women. I don’t know what they have felt, however I felt an enormous freedom; a beauty and even perfection revelation, reached by diversity; a connection feeling with all of those women, perhaps even with ALL women, I felt the empowerment that together we can achieve anything and really change the world.
Soon after (but what felt like an eternity due to the coolness) we arrived to the first location, facing the most iconic monument of the city — the Serranos Towers, the male participants reached us. It might sound strange, yet the arrival of hundreds of naked men (there were roughly a third more men than women) didn’t make the moment in a more sexual one, nor did it turn the nudity (self and others) more embarrassing. Obviously I can only speak for myself, but at that moment I observed all the other participants and didn’t see any increase of uneasiness (at least from the woman’s side).
In fact with the addition of men the previous sensations only increased. I felt that we really are all equal despite the small differences — the objective physical difference between a man and a woman can be less than between two people of the same sex. And I felt that somehow we are all connected and that together we can achieve great changes.
The selected and edited forms to which we have access, in the mass media, make us forget this variety. Which sometimes leads us into perceiving our own bodies as ugly, imperfect, strange, etc.
As human beings whose cultures require that we have certain body parts covered most of the time, we tend to forget how normal and vast is the variety of forms and shapes of those parts. The selected and edited forms to which we have access, in the mass media, make us forget this variety. Which sometimes leads us into perceiving our own bodies as ugly, imperfect, strange, etc., just because they are not similar to the bodies we are accustomed to see. Perhaps if our societies accepted and encouraged more nudity, it would be easier to accept our own as well as other people’s physical characteristics, without so much value judgments.
This also happens after being surrounded by naked humans for a while, what was strange becomes normal, the eyes stop searching constantly for those “parts” and when we see them we just pass through them as naturally as with any other body parts.
On the other hand I felt that nudity also brings us closer to our essence. We are constantly forgetting that we are just an animal species, a kind of primate, which has evolved, let us say, differently. Every day we see naked animals (what seems a caricature to us is seeing the other animals dressed) and that doesn’t seems strange to us, nor do we tend to stare at the “parts” equivalent to those that we as humans are constantly covering. This also happens after being surrounded by naked humans for a while, what was strange becomes normal, the eyes stop searching constantly for those “parts” and when we see them we just pass through them as naturally as with any other body parts.
One thing I liked very much was that the male body and the female body were treated with the same respect.
One thing I liked very much was that the male body and the female body were treated with the same respect. Unfortunately, we still live in a society that demands a greater number of “hidden parts” from females than from the males. Not forgetting that there are cultures that hide even more parts of the woman’s body. Luckily Tunick does not censure parts of bodies by sex (like many photographers and artists do) and also does not censor according to beauty standards. It was inspiring to see for example, women who had undergone mastectomies and people with all kinds of physiognomic differences among the participants.
In practical terms, the rest of the event can be summarised as: two hours spent in the cold, following directions to change postures and positions, waiting in static poses and moving to the following locations. In the end we went back to the center to get dressed and get our things back.
For me it was undoubtedly an experience with a positive balance. Even the cold issue ended up bringing something good. In addition to gaining some resistance to the cold, which lasted for a few days, I later on began to study the importance of the systems we have to regulate our temperature. Being too cold at times can be quite limiting. Now I know that being less sensitive to cold depends a lot on me, it’s not something immutable. For this I have tried to adapt to the cold without resorting to clothes or heaters. And the truth is that it is working.
And you, would you have participated in such an event? Why would you or why not? Does nudity bring you discomfort? How do you deal with the nakedness of others? As always I would like to know what do you think about all this.
