Ever visit the Dead Sea? Nothing compares, except maybe travelling to Mars. It’s a wonder of the world. Your jaw will drop and your body will feel something like zero gravity when you step into the extreme saltiness of the Dead Sea. But with millions of visitors year after year, this natural wonder – once the beauty secret of Cleopatra – is literally vanishing before our eyes.  A complex array of environmental, economic and political factors are causing the Dead Sea to disappear at an alarming rate. 

A couple of entrepreneurs from Israel, with partners, are launching a photo competition that started this week, to save the Dead Sea. The ultimate aim is to showcase these images in a real museum one day, at the Dead Sea, but before that, in a virtual museum for you to explore the natural wonder and art that the Dead Sea inspires.

The awareness that the Dead Sea needed documentation came from Noam Bedein and Ari Leon Fruchter. Noam is a photojournalist who founded a media center in a war zone of Israel at the border with the Gaza Strip, and has been capturing the Dead Sea through time-lapse photography for the past 4 years. Ari Leon Fruchter is a hi-tech executive and art collector whose family is one of the founders of the Israel Museum.

“​It saddens me to see the Dead Sea disappearing,” says Fruchter. “So the idea is to preserve what we have today for future generations to appreciate. My journey with the Dead Sea began nine years ago when I brought the artist Spencer Tunick to Israel. The resulting art installation included 1,200 participants floating nude at the Dead Sea​,” he says.  ​

Spencer Tunick’s Dead Sea project. It brought out hundreds of naked Israelis to volunteer their bodies for art and conservation. 

“My latest dream is to build a physical Museum at the Dead Sea, but with the Coronavirus pandemic, I have turned these efforts towards developing a virtual museum of art. The International Dead Sea Photo Competition is a great way to allow the public to be a part of this initiative.”

​The two are calling their project the ​Dead Sea Revival Project​ and the ​Dead Sea Virtual Museum. They are partnering with an online app ​Gurushots​ who will showcase entries and results, as part of a contest. Sign up and submit your photos here.

He takes visitors by dingy on rare visits into the Dead Sea

“This April would have marked 4 years since I began documenting the Dead Sea with time-lapse photography,” says Bedein. “I have led and promoted hundreds of eco-boat tours on the Dead Sea, showing the dramatic changes as well as the magic and beauty of our World Wonder. This is our unique chance to show our appreciation to our surrounding nature and environment that has often been forgotten.”

Judges for the photo contest include photographer superstar Spencer Tunick. Winners will be announced on September 16 at an event at the Dead Sea.

About the ​Dead Sea Projects

The post Save the Dead Sea with your old travel shots appeared first on Green Prophet.

The world is responding, but one slice of the planet has completely resisted the fun.  There’s not one photo uploaded from the Middle East!

The Topless Tour was started by three London-based dancer pals who – while hiking in Norway – spontaneously whipped off their tops for a discrete and arty photo (no word as to who actually snapped it!).  They posted it on Instagram; a trend was born.

Mainly inspired by dance, sport and yoga, the topless travel pix are tame. (See the lead photo of trend-starters Ingvild Marstein Olsen, Lydia Buckler and Olivia Edginton posing in Norway’s Rondane National Park.) Most all of the snaps capture people’s backs. The viewer follows the poser’s gaze to the scene beyond, and the bare-breasted play second fiddle to the stunning settings.

The trio told GrindTV that they became “addicted to the liberation” of being topless in the great outdoors.  They began taking more photos in new places, posting them under hashtag #thetoplesstour, attracting an international following with nearly 15,000 Instagram followers and 10,000 Facebook likes.

“The Topless Tour is the opening of your bare chest and heart to the world,” Edginton told the Daily Mail.

The photos are tasteful; nothing is gratuitous. (Although a few cheekier models also go bottomless.)

The remote settings are spectacular. Photos have been staged in California and Colorado, Cape Town and Vegas, Thailand and India – but not one originates from the Middle East or North Africa (MENA). Why is that?

Surely this region offers some of the planet’s best natural portrait studios.  So where are the shots from Jordan’s Wadi Rum, Morocco’s Atlas Mountains, or Israel’s Ein Gedi?

Photographer Spencer Tunick braved this region’s sensitive sense of modesty in his series of naked floats in the Dead Sea.  Lebanese Olympian skier Jackie Chamoun set off shock-waves when she posed partially nude on the slopes outside Beirut for a risque calender project.  Tunisian feminist Amina Tyler faced the camera head-on in her naked selfies. They’ve greased the skids for showing skin, so where is everyone else?

Check out the photos on Instagram or on their Facebook page. Why go naked?  The founding trio promises that “time will stand still and make you feel so alive.”

Are you a fun and fearless traveler? Want to bring attention to the natural wonders of the Middle East?  If you decide to drop your own top somewhere in the MENA region – please be respectful of local mores (and cautious of local laws!),  Tag your photos with #TheToplessTour, and do leave a link to your image in our comment section.

All images from #TheToplessTour Instagram site

The post An au natural topless tour trend the Middle East’s resisting appeared first on Green Prophet.

Every year the Dead Sea shrinks roughly one meter. Its main tributary, the Jordan River, is drying up, and companies like Israel Chemicals have been extracting its salt and mineral bounty, putting the fragile ecosystem at peril.

At the current rate, the Dead Sea, which nearly dried up eons ago, could completely disappear by 2050 if succinct measures are not taken to protect it.

That’s where Sitbon Architectes comes in.

Winner of Azure’s “best unbuilt competition entry” and “the people’s choice” prizes for their 2013 international design competition, the firm sought to draw attention to the Dead Sea’s unique nature while also providing an inspiring leisure center for both local and foreign visitors.

Designed for the Israeli side of what is also known as the Salt Sea due to its 33.7 percent salinity, the center is comprised of a prefabricated metal structure that can be erected in just six days.

What’s more, it is supposed to become completely covered in salt, so that the center takes on the same quality as the surrounding environment.

Organized around a crystal core, the leisure center has facilities for everyone: a bar and restaurant, a promenade for camels and their owners, mud squares for bathing, and even spots for people to practice paddling.

The ground floor was designed for socialization, but the first floor, reached only by a flight of stairs, encourages contemplation as it leads to spectacular views of the mountains, the Dead Sea and beyond.

The stairs, meanwhile, are symbolic of time. Time past, the present and the future, and represent the importance of caring not only for ourselves, but for our ailing natural resources.

For the Dead Sea, the clock is ticking.

:: Arch Daily

The post Cristal: a Salt-Covered Leisure Center for the Dying Dead Sea appeared first on Green Prophet.

Despite the recent heavy rains and flooding in Israel that helped replenish water in the Dead Sea, the salt lake in the ‘lowest point on earth ‘ is still suffering from a sharp decline in water levels due in part to the ongoing mineral harvesting activities by Israel and Jordanian chemical industries who cause the water to disappear further by evaporating it to extricate bromides and other chemicals for use in chemicals as well as in the fertilizer industry.

Aerial view of “divided Dead Sea” showing mining  evaporation pans at the lower end of the Dead Sea

The future of one of the earth’s true natural wonders may be in even greater jeopardy if plans go through for Israel Chemicals (ICL), which is one of the largest Dead Sea mineral extractors, to be purchased by a large Canadian fertilizer producer, Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan.

The Canadian firm is determined to purchase Israel Chemicals, which itself has a market value of nearly $17 billion USD, despite local fears that this would accelerate the mining of Dead Sea minerals even further.

This fear was expressed recently by Israel’s outgoing Environmental Protection minister Gilad Erdan, who said that “Potash Corp holds a global monopoly in potash production and can influence the prices of potash internationally against the interests of the State of Israel by exploiting its resources.”

Erdan went on to say that Israel Chemicals should not be allowed to merge with the large Canadian firm as it would create a “real endangerment of economic, social and environmental interests of the highest priority.

Spencer Tunick’s Naked Dead Sea photo shoot

Besides the issues involving the mineral mining industries at the Dead Sea, the salt lake also is a major tourism industry location for both Israel and Jordan. The activities of chemical companies like Dead Sea Chemicals has resulted in water levels in the areas of a number of Dead Sea hotels, beaches and health spas actually rising and threatening to flood these resort locations if measures are not taken to prevent this from occurring.

In order to bring more public attention to the lake’s plight, internationally renowned “nude art” photographer Spencer Tunick did a photo shot of 1,000 nude Israelis and tourists at the Dead Sea in September 2011.  While this project did bring attention to plight of the area’s tourism industry, it apparently did not have any affect on the mining operations which still continue unabated to this day.

The large profits created by companies like ICL, which claims to be the largest employer in the Nevev region of Israel, has caused the Finance Ministry, how headed by former journalist and Yesh Atid centrist party leader Yair Lapid, to not interfere with the operations of company which contributes NIS 12 billion ($ 3.34 billion) to Israel’s  annual GDP.

Lapid declined to “comment on the matter” in a Jerusalem Post article, and Potash Corporation (the company trying to purchase ICL) refused to comment as well. As a result, time may be definitely running out for a body of water that is predicted to run dry by the year 2050.

There is definitely ethical issues at stake when a country sells its natural resources to other countries. Concerned about the issue, we wrote to Daniel Orenstein, an outspoken environmentalist in Israel, who is also Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology; and co-author/editor of the new book Between Ruin and Restoration.

He writes to Karin Kloosterman, Green Prophet’s editor:

“I think your concern is well placed. I am not a big fan of distancing the ownership of natural resources from the source. It doesn’t bode well for local concerns (workers rights, environmental protection) – that said I’m wondering if a Canadian company would have better/stronger principles than the Israeli company they would replace (an argument that always surfaced during the NAFTA debates vis-a-vis American companies relocating to Mexico).

“Sustainability principles usually emphasize local control and decision making with regarding to natural resources. And I think your question is an excellent one and needs to be addressed – what is going to assure that the largest chunk of profits of Israel’s resources go to its citizens and not to the shareholders of an international company? – for this we’d have to check the percentage of royalties going to the public, which has been historically ridiculously low in Israel.

“And, of course, what kind of social/economic/environmental obligations are written into the deal (but I’d probably need a team of international corporate lawyers to figure if that one works to our – local – benefit).”

These are all good points that we plan on following up on.

Meanwhile…

More articles on Dead Sea environmental issues:
Steep Decline of Dead Sea Levels Due to Fertilizer Industry
1,000 Israelis Strip Naked to Save the Dead Sea
As Israel Chemicals’ Profits Soar The Dead Sea Suffers
Time Running Out for Saving Dead Sea Hotels

Lower photos via ICL Dead Sea Works

The post Dead Sea Mining Company Plans Dubious Merger With Canadian ‘Natural Resource’ Firm appeared first on Green Prophet.

In September of last year year Spencer Tunick came down to the Dead Sea and brought along with him throngs of reporters, environmentalists and 1500 people loaded on buses from around Israel who bared all in the hot sun in the name of art, and brought attention to the plight of a world’s natural treasure, the Dead Sea. The event was exposed (no pun intended) to half a billion people globally and was what I and the masses see as the start of the movement. This year we returned with Tunick to float again.

We see a movement. On the one year anniversary of Spencer Tunick’s 2011 historic Naked Sea installation, Ari Fruchter (Executive producer of the Naked Sea), Shlomit Yarkony and John Sekulow of SaveOurSea.org.il together with Ben Or Consulting/Communications, Hila, Anat Rosilio, and Iris Teitelbaum put together a flawless (The only thing missing was a few thousand more people) event that kept the momentum going with a Pre-Dawn event for 500 plus that included live music (Produced by Iris, Alex Gutman and Jam Lebo) performances by musical artists such as Ari Gorali, RebbeSoul, Tali Birenberg, Yotam Aluf, Tal Dalal and Shmuel Lebovic, and the duo of Ya’akov Lev Sameach and Roni Adar renowned Israeli ethnic percussion masters on the shores at En Bokek, and pre-sunrise talks by Daphne Leef, Social Protest leader and Spencer who is not only a world renowned photographer and artist but also an ardent environmentalist and a strong supporter of Israel.

There was an Israeli group dressed as pirates (symbolizing the greed of industry) on a raft that lead the hundreds of people in the water to shout out slogans as the media looked on, interviewed attendees and shot photos. Spencer took the opportunity to shoot some more choreographed shots that symbolized the shrinking of the water levels, by making us (yes. I did take part again) get into a human ring with our hands in the air to form a circle and then narrow the circle to symbolize the shrinking of the sea. Daphne Leef spoke about social issues such as the hotel workers from places such as Dimona who felt handcuffed from enjoying the dead sea and joining us in our social activism. Spencer spoke about returning and how he is one of the deeply concerned about this national and world treasure that has been exploited by industry for its natural resources and mismanaged by successive governments.

Thousands of people from around the world visit the shores of the Dead Sea every year to cure such ailments as psoriasis and other skin conditions. John Sekulow and Graham Lubin who sadly was unable to make it, head Save our Sea.org and suffer from psoriasis. The Dead Sea to them and thousands of others globally is a natural therapy, the only type of its kind on the planet, because of the minerals, the sun and it being the lowest spot on the planet.

If you are concerned about the Dead Sea and oppose its demise due to greedy industrialists and indifferent politicians, then we urge you to take action and join this growing movement to bring the Dead Sea back from the Dead. By current estimates, it will be reduced to a pond within the next 50-100 years. The movement is growing. The momentum is building.

The public is increasingly getting more concerned. Israeli Knesset members are listening. We must keep this momentum going! Be a part of it!This our national treasure. It is our duty to keep the Dead Sea alive for us and the world.

::Save Our Sea website

The post Floating With Spencer Tunick to Save the Dead Sea appeared first on Green Prophet.

The event scheduled to take place overnight on Thursday September 14th will include an early morning drumming session near the Masada ruins and end with a panel moderated by environmental photographer Roie Galitz.

Rent doubled in 5 years

In June 2011, while looking for a new apartment in Tel Aviv, professional video editor and social activist Daphne Leef found that it was impossible to find accommodation that was within her means. Further research revealed that in the last five years, rents in the metropolitan area have doubled in the last five years.

In protest, the daughter of Israeli composer Inam Leef set up a tent in Habima square and started a Facebook protest page. By the end of the summer, thousands of Israelis joined Daphne’s cause and pitched tents all along Rothschild Boulevard.

Largely overshadowed by the Arab Spring protests and criticized for failing to draw significant attention to the social rights of immigrants and Palestinians, this was nonetheless one of the largest passive protests staged by Israeli citizens since the state was established in 1948.

Leef meets Tunick

Leef has now found her professional soul mate in Spencer Tunick, whose large scale photographic installations have shaken up governments all over the globe.

His naked Dead Sea photo shoot last year was hailed as an enormous success for democracy and accelerated conversations about the Dead Sea, which is threatened by industrial mineral extraction and other environmental factors, though it drew enormous scorn from politicians and religious groups.

So threatened by the event, Knesset member Nissim Zeev introduced the Spencer Tunick bill aimed at outlawing public nudity in Israel. He called Tunick’s installation an “act of prostitution in the guise of art.”

Creative social activism

The creative social activism will begin in Tel Aviv, where a chartered bus will leave for the Dead Sea at 11.30pm September 13th. From 3-5am on September 14th there will be a jam session on the beach. This will be followed by an hour-long opening ceremony, and then from 6-7am, participants will be invited to join a group float in the water.

From 7-9am, a team of photographers will compile individual and group images. And then at 11am, the Prima Oasis hotel will sponsor a salon, which will be moderated by Roie Galitz.

Tickets are NIS 80 with round-trip transportation from Tel Aviv and NIS 40 without. If you’re interested to join, please register on eventbrite.

More on Israel and Spencer Tunick:

Spencer Tunick Photos of Naked Israelis are Worth $2,000

1,000 Israelis Strip Naked to Save the Dead Sea

Naked Dead Sea Picture Released by Spencer Tunick

The post Spencer Tunick and Israel’s Tent Protest Leader Team up For Dead Sea appeared first on Green Prophet.

According to a new Facebook group that just popped up there will be a new chance to float as a means to raise awareness to an ailing Dead Sea. Spencer Tunick will be returning to Israel this fall to float with the masses as Tafline reports. But he won’t go nude. 

The Facebook Group advertises:

Join Spencer Tunick as he returns to the Dead Sea in support of freedom of expression for the arts. We continue to raise local and international awareness for our disappearing natural wonder.

Celebrate the One Year Anniversary of the Spencer Tunick Installation with a massive float in the Dead Sea.

Last year’s event raised additional awareness for the troubling conditions facing this magical body of water. Momentum is building: the public is concerned, Knesset Members are listening…we need to continue! This is our body of water, our treasure…we do not want to see it neglected! Let’s all join together before the Jewish New Year – 14 September.

To learn more about the historic Spencer Tunick Dead Sea Installation visit: www.nakedsea.info

The post Spencer Tunick Will Float Clothed at the Dead Sea appeared first on Green Prophet.

Spencer Tunick will return to Israel this September to celebrate the anniversary of last year’s wildly controversial Dead Sea naked photo shoot. Designed to draw attention to the plight of the hyper-saline (and dangerously endangered) lake shared by Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Territories, the art campaign was enormously successful even though it drew widespread criticism from local politicians and religious groups opposed to public nudity. This year’s float serves a dual purpose: to maintain the momentum against activities that jeopardize the lake and to support freedom of artistic expression.

Float before the high holidays

Tunick’s nude models and others will reunite just before the Jewish high holidays on 14 September, 2012.

The main event will be held on the Ein Bokek Public Beach, where participants are encouraged to build a float in solidarity with the Save Our Sea – the Dead Sea initiative aimed at averting a worse-case-scenario ecological crisis.

Water extraction in the north end and salt and mineral extraction in the southern end have tipped the lake’s fragile balance so that parts of the lake are drying rapidly while other sections are flooding. Even so, developers continue virtually unimpeded with their destructive projects.

Event organizers encourage those who are unable to travel to Ein Bokek, a 90 minute drive east of Jerusalem, to build their own floats. It would be great to see Palestinians and Jordanians joining the fight to save the Dead Sea.

Our water, our treasure!

“This is our body of water, our treasure…,” wrote the organizers. “We do not want to see it neglected!”

Meanwhile, in June this year, Knesset member Nissim Zeev attempted to pass the Spencer Tunick Bill in order to prevent further public nude art projects of such scale from offending the country’s more conservative residents.

As far as we know, the bill did not pass, but Tunick aims to drive home the message that artistic freedom should be respected regardless of the country’s prevailing religious order.

However, those who think stripping down to nothing is a fun way to pass the day will be disappointed.

“This is not a nude event,” the organizers warn. “We expect people to respect the local laws and float together.”

The post Spencer Tunick Plans Naked Dead Sea Shoot Anniversary Float appeared first on Green Prophet.

Although certain of Tunick’s images snapped that day are worth $2,000 and the event was hailed as a powerful event that demonstrates Israel’s commitment to democracy, Zeev has not let go of his failure to protect religious interests in the country and now proposes a mandatory sentence of one year in prison for anyone who strips naked for either artistic or commercial purposes in public spaces.

Zeev argued last year that the mass photo shoot, the last in a long series of similar shoots taken in politically, socially or ecologically sensitive sites from China to Spain, was an “act of prostitution in the guise of art,” Haaretz reports.

He added that it would corrupt the Israeli youth.

In the introductory notes to the “Spencer Tunick Bill” Zeev wrote:

The determination that pornographic expression (including public nudity for art or advertising) is protected by freedom of expression and is an expression of human creation in the modern era and promotes public discourse, is contrary to the basic principle mentioned in the UN Declaration of Human Rights.”

While many secular Israelis welcomed Tunick and millions of people around the world supported the event, local religious interests were “offended.” Zeev argued that in alienating these interests by proceeding with the naked spectacle, Tunick in essence detract from the Dead Sea’s natural marvel.

In the new bill, he argues that more than merely offending religious interests, public nudity is a violation of human rights.

When progress in ‘the public discourse’ comes at the expense of a broad public of Jews, Muslims, Christians and members of other religions in the country, and constitutes an insult to religious precepts regarding modesty and a serious transgression of forbidden sexual relations, and infringes on religious sentiments of religious citizens – this is a violation of their rights and a fundamental restriction must be placed on it.

The Ministerial Committee for Legislation was expected to decide on Sunday June 10th whether or not the government will support the bill, according to Haaretz, but we’d be very surprised to see it pass.

Given their longstanding history of defending themselves against the oppressive rightwing government, the same Israelis who participated in the naked photo shoot are bound to find a provocative recourse to such a lame and draconian attempt to curtail creative artistic expression.

:: Haaretz

More on Israel and Spencer Tunick:

Spencer Tunick Photos of Naked Israelis are Worth $2,000

1,000 Israelis Strip Naked to Save the Dead Sea

Naked Dead Sea Picture Released by Spencer Tunick

The post Israel’s Spencer Tunick Bill Attempts to Outlaw Public Nudity appeared first on Green Prophet.

To the horror of some and delight of thousands, Tunick’s latest shoot brought the Dead Sea’s shrinking state to the awareness of 15 million people around the world. And now it’s possible for collectors to place bids on an 11×14 C-print of his remarkable images, which are valued at $2,000 each.

On 17 September last year, 1,200 Israelis stripped naked just after the crack of dawn at a secret location at the northern edge of the historic lake. The lowest and saltiest place on earth, the Dead Sea is shrinking at a rate of one meter a year as a result of the dried up Jordan River up north and chemical works further south.

Some scientists worry that without intervention, the lake will be completely dry by 2050.

Religious Jews were deeply opposed to the project, which Tunick claims could never have happened elsewhere in the Middle East. There is a direct relationship between a country’s openness to this form of art and its democracy, he claims, though many Green Prophet readers citing the Palestinian question claimed this statement is not entirely accurate.

Nonetheless, art is naturally provocative, and Tunick has never shied from the controversy his nude photography so often inspires.

“Thanks to the participants’ efforts the world has a new image of Israel that is not connected to terrorism or religious extremism,” Tunick said of the project, adding that “Israeli’s are some of the most beautiful, warm, educated, open minded and peaceful people that I have ever worked with.”

Own your own Tunick photo

Those interested in owning their own photograph of naked Israelis can register with Paddle8, an online auction house that allows international collectors access to a coveted selection of works from renowned artists.

Co-founders Aditya Julka and Alexander Gilkesjoined forces with design firm TENDER Creative, Managing Director Osman Khan and Managing Editor Andrea Hill to form Paddle8’s core team and launch the site on May 18th, 2011. Today, Paddle8 has a team of over ten art and technology professionals, which handles everything from insurance to shipping.

Tunick has yet to announce where his next major shoot will take place, but we’re waiting with bated breath.

Image via Paddle8

More on Naked Israelis and the Dead Sea:
1,000 Israelis Strip Naked to Save the Dead Sea
As Israel Chemicals’ Profits Soar, the Dead Sea Suffers
Naked Dead Sea Picture Released by Spencer Tunick

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