Swiss Against Climate Change
by Bonnie Alter, London 
on 08.20.07
It's the big chill, for real. In -10 degree weather, six hundred dedicated Swiss posed nude on a melting glacier in Switzerland. And committed they were: participating meant a day’s travel followed by chairlift rides and a two-hour’s hike to the glacier. They did it to draw attention to global warming and the shrinking glaciers, which are predicted to disappear by 2080. The Aletsch glacier (pictured) receded by 115m between 2005 and 2006. Spencer Tunick, a New York artist famous for pictures of nude gatherings in public places, set this photo shoot up in collaboration with Greenpeace. He said that he wanted to emphasise human vulnerability: 'I want my images to go more than skin-deep. I want the viewers to feel the vulnerability of their existence and how it relates closely to the sensitivity of the world's glaciers." His last exhibit was 18,000 Mexicans stripping in Mexico City.
But some are questioning the impact of these gimmicks. We are so used to being bombarded with naked bodies that the historic links between nudity and purity (think Garden of Eden, Greeks and Romans, Michelangelo's David) no longer exist. And except for Janet Jackson's nipple, there is little surprise factor. Greenpeace is planning to use Tunick’s photographs for a campaign on the “naked truth” about climate change. :: Globe and Mail
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