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What does the average nude body look like? If you were to use pop culture –circa the mid-aughts, specifically — as your barometer, your answer might look like the swath of thin, light-skinned women found on television, in film, or on the pages of magazines. If you were to use the 11-year-old as your gauge, the answer would be somewhat different: In essence, there is no average nude body.
The Nu Project started with , a freelance photographer and web developer based in Minneapolis, Minn, who, in 2005, was seeking a way to subvert the typical image of a nude woman that dominated mainstream media. Instead of the “perfect,” highly stylized bodies that filled screens and billboards, he wanted to showcase the very real and varied forms that female-identifying individuals outside of Hollywood were proud to have as their own. He wanted to showcase an “honest” nude.
His goal was simple: he eschewed professional models and glamour in favor of capturing a diverse array of nude volunteers in poses and makeup comfortable to their personalities. The project really took off in 2009, when Blum’s wife,
There were actually an intersection of two things that led to the creation of The Nu Project. [My] experience with disordered eating in college and the lack of diverse body types and ages in nude photography. From the beginning our focus has always been the personal connection between the viewer and the subject. As a photographic team, the best compliments we can receive are things like, “Your subjects look so confident and happy” and “You show beauty in many diverse types of people.”
Sometimes. We think Lena Dunham has done a great job with “Girls”; showing the world that there is no single body type that can be nude in a very successful, mainstream show. We also notice that for most publications and shows, it’s still the same as it ever was.
