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NUDE

Paris city chiefs ready to let nudists hang out in park

Paris officials say they're keen to push through a proposal for a designated space in the capital for nudists.

Published: 26 September 2016 10:31 CEST
Paris city chiefs ready to let nudists hang out in park
Photo: AFP
Deputy mayor Bruno Julliard said on Monday that City Hall would take on a proposal for a nude spot in Paris, a suggestion that came via the Green Party of Paris last week. 
 
“I'm all for it, and I think the mayor of Paris is too. So we're going to do it,” he told the BFM TV channel.
 
“We don't want to shock anyone, so we have to find the right place, probably in a park or a garden,” he said. 
 
“The greens have proposed for it to be in the heart of Paris, even on the quayside, but we won't be starting there,” Julliard said. 
 
“We don't want to upset anyone, we'll be doing this with respect to everyone's sensibilities.”
 
He noted that while it would mark the first nude zone in Paris, other Europe capitals like Berlin already offer similar opportunities for naturists. 

Exactly where the nudists zone will be remains a mystery, at present. 
 
Naturists in Paris have their own ideas, however. 
 
Jacques Frimont, vice president of the Association for the Promotion of Naturism in Liberty (APNEL), has suggested somewhere near the Daumesnil lake in Bois de Vincennes to the east of the city, the same lake that the government plans to turn into a public swimming zone by 2019. 
 
Lac Daumesnil‎ in the Bois de Vincennes. Could this be the new nude zone? Photo: Christian Bortes/WikiCommons 
 
Paris is gradually becoming more and more open-minded toward the nudity in public. 
 
Plans for a pop-up naked restaurant in the city have been set in motion after the concept’s success in London and this month's Fête de l’Humanité included a designated nudist stand.  
 
Getting caught in the nude in France currently comes with risks of a fine of €15,000 and up to one year in prison. 
 

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ART

Stuttgart lays itself bare in the name of freedom, nature and art

Naked people pretending to be giraffes standing between cars or acting like monkeys climbing trees have become a regular sight in Stuttgart this summer, due to an artistic campaign in the name of nature and freedom.

Published: 19 September 2017 16:43 CEST
Stuttgart lays itself bare in the name of freedom, nature and art
Participants in the Kessel-Safari project pretending to be mountain goats. Photo: Daniela Wolf.

Stuttgart was subject to a naked takeover on Sunday during one of several photo shoots which have taken place in the southern city throughout the summer.

The takeover was part of an artistic campaign involving students and professors from Kunstakademie Stuttgart posing au naturel in various public locations for a calendar which aims to lay bare environmental and social issues in the city.

“We think in the end, people would certainly be much better off if they went running around together in the bushes more often, instead of being stuck in a traffic jam,” the organizers Justyna Koeke and Marie Leinhard told The Local.

Artists pose on a roundabout in the city. Photo: Stuttgart Under Construction.

The art students described their project as a reaction to Stuttgart's numerous construction sites and “constant traffic stress”. The capital of Baden-Württemberg is one of the most polluted cities in the country despite being in the only German state lead by the Green Party. 

“We set about finding more freedom, more nature, more humanity” in a world which is increasingly conservative and controlled, the artists told The Local.

There is certainly a lot of humanity visible in these photos, with a distinct lack of clothing in any of the scenes.

Last year the artists similarly created a naked calendar centred around the city's many building sites. But for this project, they wanted to show “the wild side of Stuttgart”.

The 2018 calendar project, named “Kessel-Safari”, (kettle safari) isn't like any safari you've seen before.

The team from the Kunstakademie imitated various wild animals by climbing over the parks and green areas in the city and getting as close to nature as possible.

Koeke and Leinhard feel “Stuttgart has a fine, long-standing naked tradition,” while they also point out that “animals don't wear clothes”.

The artists say they hope the calendar will raise questions about whether normal citizens can have a say in the development of their city, rather than just big investors.

But they also just want to “make people laugh because naked people are pretending to be giraffes between the cars, or monkeys climbing in the trees.”

Kessel-Safari artists monkeying around in a tree in Stuttgart. Photo: Stuttgart Under Construction.

Residents of Stuttgart should be prepared for further “wild animal” sightings next week as the final three photos for the Kessel-Safari calendar are set to be shot then.