Over 5,000 naked men and women came together for photographer
Spencer Tunick’s homage to an equal Australian society, yesterday.
Organisers originally expected 2,000 people for the shoot, which
took place outside the world-famous Opera House, but more than twice
that amount showed up and stripped down.
The installation, named Mardi Gras: The Base, is the artist’s first
Australia-based project and was commissioned by the Sydney Gay and
Lesbian Mardi Gras. People of all shapes, sizes, colours and
backgrounds came together to encourage diversity and freedom.
Tunick, who lead the crowd into a series of poses until asking them
to embrace one another, noted that heterosexuals were reticent to touch
their gay peers. “Gay men and women lay naked next to their straight
neighbours and this delivered a very strong message to the world that
Australians embrace a free and equal society.
“It was difficult to get the straight people to embrace the gay
participants ... I was happy we got it in the second set-up,” he added.
One participant, student Art Rush, 19, told The Sydney Morning
Herald: “It doesn’t feel sexual, it just feels tribal - a gathering of
humanity.”