Get naked at Bondi (legally) this week

The globally-renowned artist is calling on you - and Chris Hemsworth - to strip down for cancer awareness.

The globally-renowned artist is calling on you - and Chris Hemsworth - to strip down for cancer awareness.

Australians can (legally) get naked on Australia’s most famous beach for the first time in history, as a prominent artist makes a public call-out for Chris Hemsworth to strip down for cancer awareness. 

Section 663 of the Nude Bathing Act – yes, that’s a real thing – will be suspended ever so briefly on Bondi this Saturday as contemporary artist Spencer Tunick, known for his dazzling snaps of nudist crowds, invites Australians to get their jocks off for Skin Check Champions. 

People posing nude on a beach on Haslewood Island, part of the Whitsunday Islands, 1096km north of Brisbane, for US art photographer Spencer Tunick.

In a particularly ambitious move, Tunick extended his call-out to the Thor star, who recently announced he’s taking a break from acting after a health scare, saying celebrity status would boost the impact of the event. 

“Chris is very comfortable getting his gear off fort art,” Tunick said. “Anyone who has seen the latest Thor trailer will know that.”

“We wish him all the best,” Tunick said of Hemsworth’s latest news. 

“It drives home the importance of people looking after their health in the best way possible.”

Hemsworth will, hopefully, get naked alongside Australian charity veteran and Skin Check Champions founder Scott Maggs. 

Maggs, who last year shaved off his 11-year-old beard after raising $1 million for skin cancer, told The Oz the nude installation was just the latest iteration in his charity goals.

“The beard was a great starting point, targeting that at-risk male audience, but we want to appeal to everyone under the sun,” he said. 

“We’re using skin to save skin. You have the marathons and donation days, but what do we really want? We want people to strip off and get checked, so let’s strip off.” 

The beard in question Maggs – also known by his online name Jimmy Niggles – spent more than a decade growing out after his friend Wes Bonny died of skin cancer. The mahogany mane was shaved clean at an event at Sydney’s The Ivy last year, when Maggs’s fundraising hit the million dollar mark. 

“It started as a random dare we came up with at Wes’s wake,” he said. 

“We all grew beards the winter following his death, and I didn’t want to let mine go. It became a kind of hairy ambassador for the movement.” 

Lesser known Australians, too, are welcome at Saturday’s Strip Down for Skin Cancer event. 

Tunick and Maggs – who still grows a beard each winter but currently has “a bit of a George Clooney thing going on” – hope to assemble thousands of sunscreened bodies on Bondi to pose for the piece. 

La Roche Posay will be in attendance, handing out the SPF50 and performing free skin checks.

They’ve already reached their goal of 2500 – roughly the number of Australians who die of skin cancer each year – but insist registrations are still open.

“The more the merrier,” Tunick said. 

“We want everyone to participate regardless of if they’re famous or not. My goal when I look through the lens is to see a real diversity that represents Australian society – all genders, all races, all body sizes and people of all abilities.” 

"My goal when I look through the lens is to see a real diversity that represents Australian society," says Spencer Tunik.

Each participant will honour an Australian who has died from skin cancer, Maggs said. 

“I always try to keep Wes in the back of my mind, and what could have saved him. When we’re standing on Bondi as the first rays of light come up, just before summer, I hope everyone can remember the people – maybe someone they know – who lost their life to skin cancer.”