Celebrity Naturist of the Year 2015: Spencer Tunick

The Celebrity Naturist of the Year is a person who might never have visited a nude beach or a naturist resort.
But that's not the point. The point is that through his or her actions or words, he either actively or unwittingly helped promote the cause of naturism, i.e. non-sexual social nudity.
For the first time since I started announcing these awards, the winner of the Celebrity Naturist of the Year Award is a man: Spencer Tunick, the photographer famous for his mass nude ensembles of people, standing or lying anywhere in a landscape from the Dead Sea to a glacier to the Sydney Opera House.
Standing around naked on a street is not naturism in it self, but Tunick's work has helped to popularize non-sexual nudity. It has helped other people - "textiles," in the naturist language - see nudity as something natural, ordinary, common, acceptable, artistic and beautiful.
We were all born naked, and Spencer Tunick's work has brought the humanity and naturalness of nudity closer to daily life.
While naturists prefer to live together on beaches, in resorts and hotels separate from textiles, Spencer Tunick has brought us closer to a world where it doesn't matter whether you wear clothes or not in your daily life. Thanks to his work, you can imagine a world, a city, an environment, where some people were clothes and some do not, all living together without surprise or shock at each other.
The 48-year-old New Yorker (49-year-old, if you're reading this in 2016) can be compared to the Go Topless or Free the Nipple movement started by Lina Esco, a previous Celebrity Naturist of the Year. Not a naturist either, but a person generalizing the innocence of public nudity and breaking the link, still present in too many minds, that nudity equals sex.
A naturist who lives away from naturist resorts and nude beaches can still get a flavor of the lifestyle by volunteering for a Spencer Tunick shoot. That's on my bucket list.
www.spencertunick.com

Taiwan's Glory in Sydney

Only yesterday, I wrote about the latest Spencer Tunick mass nude event in Sydney, hoping the same thing would be possible in Asia.
Just one day later, the omnipresent Taiwanese media found out that among the 5,200-strong crowd, there was one Taiwanese present.
In the front row in Sydney was a male Ph.D. student from the southern city of Kaohsiung, Lo Ching-yao. Not only did TV station TVBS identify him, it also tracked him down for a short interview.
Lo said the event was unique and a once-in-a-lifetime experience he just had to go for. At first, he was nervous, but as he saw the Australians around him take off their clothes without any hesitation, he already felt more comfortable. Lo said his sister approved of his decision to participate.
Even more interesting, Lo uttered the suggestion that the same kind of event could be staged in Taiwan itself. A proposal we fully support.
Lo's appearance in Sydney earned him the nickname of "Taiwan's Glory" or "Taiwan zhi Guang," an appellation used for all Taiwanese who become famous overseas, particularly in sports, but also a pun, since the Chinese word "guang" can also mean "naked."

5,200 People and One Tunick

5,200 Australians were nude and they had only one Tunick. But it was Spencer Tunick, the famous American who succeeds in persuading thousands of people worldwide to take off all of their clothes in some of the most famous public places. The event is never a secret, since apart from Tunick's own crew, the world's media also never pass up an opportunity to take pictures.
Tunick has done it everywhere, in New York, London, Bruges, and now outside the Sydney Opera House. He calls himself an artist and the mass nude events 'artistic installations,' but whatever you think, his 'art' has proved an immense success, and has made a contribution to the acceptability of non-sexual nudity. Standing around naked or lying naked on the steps of the Sydney Opera might not be naturism, and might or might not be art, but it certainly promotes the acceptance of nudity.
Asia has been conspicuously absent from his list of locations, and we all know that is because of the antiquated legislation on the books in most Asian countries. Why can't we have masses of naked people in front of the famous durian-shaped arts center in Singapore, on the massive place in front of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei, Taiwan, or - even more daring - on Tiananmen Square in Beijing? Tunick could start with the ostensibly most 'westernized' places in Asia, namely Hong Kong and Japan, and see where he can go from there.
Public response from the local population might be more timid then what we see in Europe or Australia, but with the help of foreign residents and an official permission from more enlightened authorities, his events could come a long way, and better understanding of naturism would follow in his footsteps.
For 12 pictures of the Sydney event, visit the website of the Italian newspaper La Stampa at http://www.lastampa.it/multimedia/multimedia.asp?p=1&pm=1&IDmsezione=24&IDalbum=24578&tipo=FOTOGALLERY#mpos
Spencer Tunick's website is http://www.spencertunick.com.