After months of back-and-forth planning with Culture & Business Pride, photographer Spencer Tunick arrived in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, in front of the Cathedral of Santa Ana. In the early morning gloom of 26 July, participants from twenty-three different countries gathered to put forward a vision of diversity that “does not move backwards.” Gran Spectrum finally came to fruition through the shared vision of the photographer, Culture & Business Pride, and various cultural institutions on the island.
Approximately five hundred nude participants, painted in the colours of Daniel Quasar’s Progress Pride Flag, lay sprawled together on the ground, stood en masse with their hands above their heads, and lined up in the cathedral courtyard. In the historic town of Vegueta, Tunick wants viewers to see the work as an intervention in a world increasingly hostile to LGBTQIA+ individuals.
Using the staging to synthesise the interconnectedness of the Canary Islands’ culture, queerness, and history, Tunick—as he explained to us recently—“layer[s] a wonderful, warm blanket on top of a place that was already warm and wonderful to the [LGBTQIA+] community.” Gran Spectrum is an ode to Gran Canaria’s thriving queer community that seeks to make a bodily commentary on queer visibility and alliance.
