Volunteers strip to their masks for art installation at Alexandra Palace

Two-hundred and twenty people posed nude, apart from white face masks, at London's Alexandra Palace in the first major participatory work of art since lockdown, which has been created by Spencer Tunick to mark the Sky Arts channel becoming free from September 17. Picture: Everyone Together by Spencer Tunick (Image: The artist Spencer Tunick must be credited for the images with title of work (which is included along with the images). The i...)

More than 200 people took part in the gathering, the brainchild of US artist Spencer Tunick, at London’s Alexandra Palace.

Tunick, who is known for his images of groups of naked people taken all over the world, said that creating the work was “liberating and life-affirming”.

The installation, assembled in the early hours, was “about breaking down barriers”, he said.

“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,” the photographer said.

Two-hundred and twenty people posed nude, apart from white face masks, at London's Alexandra Palace in the first major participatory work of art since lockdown, which has been created by Spencer Tunick to mark the Sky Arts channel becoming free from September 17. Picture: Everyone Together by Spencer Tunick (Image: The artist Spencer Tunick must be credited for the images with title of work (which is included along with the images). The i...)

Participants stood at least one metre apart and had temperature checks on arrival when they took part in the installation, photographed on Saturday, organisers said.

It has been billed as “the UK’s first major participatory work of art since lockdown”.

Entitled Everyone Together, it was supported by Sky Arts to mark the channel now being available on Freeview and Freesat.

Sky Arts director Phil Edgar Jones said: “To celebrate Sky Arts becoming free for everyone, we wanted to create a landmark cultural moment that invited participation in a Covid-safe fashion and demonstrated to the wider public that art is at its most essential when it is for - and about - everybody.

Two-hundred and twenty people posed nude, apart from white face masks, at London's Alexandra Palace in the first major participatory work of art since lockdown, which has been created by Spencer Tunick to mark the Sky Arts channel becoming free from September 17. Picture: Everyone Together by Spencer Tunick (Image: The artist Spencer Tunick must be credited for the images with title of work (which is included along with the images). The i...)

“While the pandemic has presented challenges to the cultural sector, we’ve also seen a great deal of innovation in the arts, and thousands of people have created their own artworks or reconnected with their artistic abilities. The sense that the arts is for a self-selecting group of people is disappearing, and that can only be a good thing.”

New shows on Sky Arts include Offended by Irvine Welsh, exploring the nature of offence and its impact, Sky Arts Book Club Live and Charles Hazlewood: Beethoven And Me, marking the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth.