Conversations in the Nude

Book excerpt: 'Nudity is not the end of the exercise, it is the beginning.' Mihir Srivastava sketches naked people. He is fascinated by the tension it calls to the room, the taboos it challenges, the vulnerabilities it exposes and how it sometimes empowers people. Nudity is not just about shedding clothes, he believes, but about letting down a shield that we think protects us. In a world where the bare body is something to be hidden, to protect our children against, to be banned as obscene, there is no freedom to strip. Not without infringing on the freedom of those who are clothed. Through his search to understand this, Mihir has created what he calls 'a private space for public nudity'. Public nudity within closed doors. It is still public, because there is no context for this interaction in the raw. No relationship, no prospect of sexual intimacy. This is an artistic collaboration, or perhaps a social experiment, maybe both. Conversations in the Nude maps that experiment, presents those sketches, chronicles several remarkable sessions. These are the stories of one man's crazy dream, and of the very many who saw some sense in it.