My vague festering compulsion to participate in a Spencer Tunick installation saw its chance to be fulfilled when The Lowry commissioned him to photograph Everyday People.
The action was scheduled for the first weekend in May 2010. Places were strictly limited – applying on the first day of notice and following up with some robust begging was only sufficient to get me involved on the Saturday. But I was in, and in was good enough.
1 May 2010 was the Saturday in question. In the blackness of very early morning a select 500 queued up at The Lowry, waiting to be taken in bus convoy around various Salford locations.
The sense of anticipation and excitement among participants was palpable in the build up to the first shoot. Not even the harsh cold could diminish it. The absurdity of the situation, the liberation of joy, a licence to do the unthinkable, a resolute commitment to the greater whole… all these things brought strangers closer together. Friendships forged in that shared experience continue to this day.
It’s all about the mass, never about the individual.
But… here are some pictures of the mass with me, me, me highlighted:
…and here are The Lowry’s own video records of the shoot:
You’ll find me in the second one at the 1:00 mark, walking under a railway arch in deep conversation with Jenny Williams.
On 7 June 2009, the Sunday before first my naked contribution to an artistic project, I loaned my body to an altogether more worthwhile cause. PETA has often used the revealed bodies of its supported as an unshamed means of generating publicity. The ‘Bare Skin, Not Bearskin‘ action was intended to draw attention to the needless slaughter of bears to make headpieces for guardsmen.
PETA’s campaign calls on the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to stop using bear pelts to make headpieces for the five guards regiments and to have the hats fashioned from luxurious faux fur instead.
With dozens of other volunteers I arrived at a secret location south of the river in central London, stripped off, daubed my whole body with blood-like red paint, and then donned a robe and plastic bear mask ready for action. We crossed to the north of the river via the footbridge in front of Tate Modern where, on some steps between the bridge and St. Paul’s Cathedral, we dis-robed in front of a waiting press pack and began our protest cry: “MoD, go fur free”.
Three years on, the bears are still being slaughtered… but not all wars can be won in a single offensive.
Photos copyright McTumshie (Flickr).
Everybody – and indeed, every ‘body’ – has to start somewhere. For me, before life modelling came a desire to join in one of the large-scale installations composed and photographed by Spencer Tunick. His works bring together hundreds, sometimes thousands, of ordinary people at locations around the world, united by a willingness to disrobe for art or curiosity or the hedonism of the moment.
The anonymity of the crowd is as good a place as any to lose oneself or find oneself but, as there’s no knowing when or where the next installation might occur, I signed up to the unofficial Spencer Tunick Experience forum and waited…
And while I waited, I saw notices posted for other projects requiring naked volunteers. One of these was in my own county of Essex, at Prested Hall near Kelvedon. So I signed up, and while I waited for Tunick’s next big event in the UK, the Marie Treck photo shoot at Prested Hall became my first participation project. Sunday 14 June 2009: about thirty of us arrived, stripped to nothing, covered ourselves in paint, and were photographed in various formations.
Here are a few of the results:
I believe that’s me bottom left, bottom left, and centre.
And so it began…
steve ritter 