Your chance to be photographed nude

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Museums at Night festival, 15–17 May

Deadline for applications for nude photoshoot: 5p.m. 14 April

Over three nights in May, hundreds of museums, galleries and historic spaces all over the UK will open up late and put on an array of special night-time events: from unique literary talks in castles to star-gazing in historic houses; sleepovers in palaces to city-wide culture crawls; bands playing in amongst museum exhibits to science-fiction life drawing in galleries. The Museums at Night festival offers the chance to experience culture and heritage in a totally unexpected way.

New York artist Spencer Tunick, who has created some huge naked human art installations featuring hundreds of nudes in public places, will be coming to the UK in May, heading to Folkestone to create intimate portraits as part of the Museums at Night festival.

Tunick is seeking volunteers for an individual nude photo shoot to take place at Georges House Gallery, Old High Street, Folkestone
for Museums at Night. Everyone is welcome to apply to be part of this unique series of individual portraits.

For the chance to take part, please email a photo of yourself and a brief explanation of who you are and why you want to participate (including your name, age, address and phone number) to [email protected]. Participants will be selected on the basis of the photographs submitted and what they write.

The deadline to sign up is 5p.m. on Monday 14 April.

Spencer Tunick stages scenes in which the battle of nature against culture is played out against various backdrops, from civic centre to desert sandstorm, man and woman are returned to a preindustrial, pre-everything state of existence.

Organizing groups from a handful of participants to tens of thousands, all volunteers, is often logistically daunting. Since 1992, Tunick has been arrested five times while attempting to work outdoors in New York City. In order to make his work without the threat of arrest the artist took his work abroad. He has not undertaken a group installation on the streets of New York in over ten years. 

Tunick's most notable works have been commissioned by Art Basel, Switzerland (1999), Institut Cultura, Barcelona (2003), XXV Biennial de Sao Paulo, Brazil (2002), The Saatchi Gallery(2003), MOCA Cleveland (2004), Vienna Kunsthalle (2008), among others.

Other photographers taking part in Museums at Night include Rankin, one of the UK’s most well-known photographers. Rankin will be St Ann’s Allotments in Nottingham – the UK’s oldest and largest allotment, a Grade II* listed heritage site and a living museum encompassing over 600 years of history as well as 670 allotment gardens.  He will be photographing allotment holders during the day and his photographs will then be displayed at an evening event on the site.

Now in its sixth year, the Museums at Night festival ties in with the European initiative La Nuit des Musees. It is run by non-profit cultural publisher Culture24 and designed to attract new audiences into museums and galleries, via a whole range of exciting experiences and events.

Museums at Night is funded by Arts Council England.

Full listings can be found at www.museumsatnight.org.uk.