Not at the Dead Sea though. In 2011, Spencer Tunick created his first Dead Sea Installation. He enlisted 1,200 Israelis and travelers from other countries to pose naked in and around the salty waters. The installation was carefully photographed; you can see the result on the upper floor of this exhibition. The images might be familiar to you. The stunning compositions went viral – not uncommon for Tunick’s work. People all over the world took notice. You could say this moment in time is burned into our collective memory. And therefore, the moment didn’t perish. It’s still there, in these amazing art works. And it will still be there in a hundred years.

Ironically, everything you see in these photographs is gone. The naked people in this installation moved on. They are all ten years older; their bodies aged and their minds carry ten more years of experiences. They are not the same people. But the most dramatic change has to do with the one thing you would expect to remain the same: the sea. It should still be there 1o years later, but it isn’t. The locations you see in Spencer Tunick’s 2011 installation are unrecognizable. The water has retreated, and huge sink holes have transformed the landscape. Tunick went back to the Dead Sea in 2016 to create new installations, exploring the sink holes that changed the landscape so dramatically. You can see those works on the bottom floor of the exhibition.

Preserved moments in a lost landscape. A collection of bodies caught in the ephemeral moment, perfect in only a few frames. Who would expect that to outlast a landscape of rock and a sea of water?

The answer to that question isn’t ‘no-one’. These installations were created to raise awareness of the dire situation in this area. The participants can be seen as heroic guardians of the Dead Sea, bringing attention to its human demise. But at the same time their vulnerable bodies aren’t just outlasting the Dead Sea; they represent the very cause of its diminishing future.

The Dead Sea Life Competition was launched during the height of Coronavirus as an official Earth Day initiative with participation from 40 countries, including from the Middle East: Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, and UAE.  A total of 3524 photographers, 13,123 photos and 9,083,102 votes were received. The judges included Spencer Tunick, Roie Galitz, Keren Bar Gil, & Casey Kelbaugh who selected Alex Bronfer for the Best Photograph and helped choose 40 images for the exhibition.