A group of about 300 men and women posed naked with artistic intent Sunday inside the diminishing Dead Sea in Israel. The group covered their bare bodies in white paint to help bring awareness to the area.

Artist Spencer Tunick is known for his exotic nude art in multiple notable locations. The Tourism Ministry and Tunick came together to create photographs that are considered “out there” to raise awareness that the Dead Sea is in need of preservation due to destruction from upstream water sources for agriculture.

“My visit to Israel was an experience for me and I am always happy to return here and photograph in the only country in the Middle East that allows art such as this,” Tunick said in an interview.

The nude models volunteered to be a part of the project, where they stood in the desert for three hours being placed in different positions for Tunick to capture with his camera.

The Tourism Ministry also called for the collaboration to attract visitors to the area. Tourists have been banned from Israel since the beginning of coronavirus, but the country is now allowing vaccinated people to visit. Tourism will also help the area bring in the funds it needs to help preservation.

Tunick’s famous philosophy is "individuals en masse, without their clothing, grouped together, metamorphose into a new shape. The bodies extend into and upon the landscape like a substance. These grouped masses which do not underscore sexuality become abstractions that challenge or reconfigure one's views of nudity and privacy."

He has also created large-scale nude artwork in French wine country, a Swiss glacier, and a beach in South Africa.

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