Hundreds pose nude wearing only masks for London art installation

Hundreds of volunteers have stripped and posed naked in a north London park -- all in the name of art.

Wearing nothing but a white face mask, some 220 volunteers gathered at Alexandra Palace to take part in the Everyone Together art installation organized by Spencer Tunick.

Tunick, who is known for bringing hundreds -- and sometimes thousands -- of people together to pose for striking mass nude photographs, positioned volunteers at least one meter apart according to social distancing guidelines.

Volunteers were screened and temperature-checked before the installation began in the early hours of Saturday morning, organizers said.

The installation, which was the first major participatory work of art since the United Kingdom went into lockdown in March, organizers said, was supported by Sky Arts.

"The reality of masses of people close together -- shoulder to shoulder, skin touching skin -- may be something of the past for now, but still the desire is there for that natural connectivity, perhaps more so now than ever," Tunick said in a statement.

Tunick, who has transformed locations all around the world into a sea of naked bodies, has worked to pose and capture the human form, even in the face of coronavirus restrictions.

This year, the artist has been using video conferencing technology to take images of mask-wearing participants -- capturing his nude installations via collage style screenshots during lockdown.

American-born Tunick has staged about 100 large-scale nude photos in public spaces around the world, from Munich to Mexico City, where he photographed a reported 18,000 naked participants.

While his naked art has previously been used as a form of protest, according to organizers Tunick's London installation was designed to celebrate "participation and freedom." .