Arad, Israel – About 200 models in white demonstrated Sunday on the shores of the Dead Sea in the city of Aradi, Israel. The intervention was part of a photographic project aimed at raising awareness of the effects of climate change in the region. The salt lake has shrunk by about a meter every year.
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Filming was coordinated and executed by American photographer Spencer Tunick. The artist in Israel received an invitation from the country’s Ministry of Tourism. The idea was to depict the shrinking of the Dead Sea through nudity.
“For me, the body represents beauty, life and love,” Tunick said in an interview with AFP. The photographer has already conducted tests with nudity around the world.
Tonic explained that people of different styles were collected: men and women, erect and curved, fat and thin. The bodies were covered in white paint to evoke the biblical story of Lot’s wife, who was said to have been turned into a salt statue.
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Tonic expenses were paid by the Ministry of Tourism. Aradi municipality provided staff and covered other expenses, mayor Nissan Benhamou told AFP.
The initiative, however, elicited reactions as well. Conservative Israeli leaders criticized the photo session, calling it a “collective abhorrent event,” according to Agence France-Presse.
Ben Hamou responded to critics. The mayor took the event as confirmation that she wanted a “liberal city”. He said the article would bring more visitors to the city, and in doing so would help raise funds for a new museum about the Dead Sea.
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