Some girls dream of becoming hairdressers. Some girls would rather be princesses riding unicorns.

I carried a school bag with her picture until the age of 13, way past the socially acceptable age for Disney fashion. A mermaid who achieved what no mermaid had achieved before. So eager to explore beyond her world!

Eight years later, I found myself living 20 km north of Copenhagen. It was my first time living abroad (I don’t count Czechia), everything was new and exciting. Even the famous sculpture of the Little Mermaid. Many people are disappointed when they see it for the first time, it’s so easy to overlook. Well, yes, but it’s named the Little Mermaid, the expectations should be pretty clear. A Danish girl once explained how famous the sculpture is in Denmark. It is regularly dressed, painted, occasionally it gets the head chopped off or parts blasted by explosives. An Italian exchange student in my group heard the stories and decided to teach us how they treat sculptures in his hometown Verona. It brings good luck!

My favorite hobby used to be exploring Copenhagen with a bag of candies in my bike’s basket. This is how I discovered another sculpture of the Little Mermaid. Crooked, misshaped, strange. I actually found her very interesting! Definitely more than the famous version.

It makes sense, as a child, I never liked her story because she was pretty. Would the prince fall in love with her if she looked crooked, misshaped and strange? What if not, would she find another way out of the sea? Yes, I believe in making dreams come true. Three years later I dyed my hair red. New worlds were waiting for me!

Recently I had a chance to realize another childhood dream. It was 1997 and the movie Titanic just came out. There was a big fuss about it my family, I don’t remember why. For the first time I watched it together with my mum and aunt. Because I was 7 years old, I was ordered to cover my eyes during Naked and kissing scenes. Parental control in the 90’s obviously just made me more curious. Lucky for me, we used to visit my aunt quite often. Usually she was busy drinking wine with my mum in the kitchen, while I was left alone to explore the house of my grandparents. I also knew how to operate the VCR machine in the aunt’s bedroom. I found every “forbidden” scene quite boring except the drawing scene. I secretly watched it over and over again, still not sure why it was so fascinating. It wasn’t anything erotic, I simply wished to have the same experience as Rose.

A Facebook advert caught my eye.

The organizer of the event was very welcoming. She promised to show me around and suggest some Poses beforehand. I was instructed to bring a towel and a book for longer poses.

For weeks I was excited like a little girl. Of course I tried to come up with some good-looking naked poses at home. Am I supposed to be sexy, natural, playful? No idea. Do I look good naked? Do I care? Not at all. Me and myself in the mirror had a good laugh together.

When the time came, I left work early on a random Tuesday. I should have left even earlier, but I was in the middle of a programming problem and I tend to lose track of time. I kept working on the way to Zürich. Finding the right exit out of Zürich Hauptbahnhof is still trial and error for me, that’s why

I successfully made it two minutes before the beginning of the event, sweaty and confused about what was going to happen. There was no time to show me around, no time to discuss ideas for poses. The organizer, Alina, was already waiting for me, together with 15 people. She immediately sent me to the back room to undress. What a relief to remove my sweaty clothes!

Completely naked, I carefully stepped into a big room with high ceiling. There was an old chair and an old mattress in the spotlight. People were distributed around it in a semicircle. Alina gave me very simple instructions and no inspiration – the poses would be 3x 5 min, 1x 15 min and 2x 30 min. I should sit down on the towel when using the chair or mattress for my pose. And ta-da! She started the first 5-minute countdown.

The stage light was blinding and my eyes were jumping from one person to another. You might think that I was nervous and looking for reassurance in my audience. Surprisingly that wasn’t the case. I was quite confused about how to behave, how to model. The fact that I’m using the word model and I don’t refer to physics is highly unusual already I’ve had more eyes on me during scientific talks. However, when I give a talk and smile on people, they react. They look confused when they don’t understand, reassuring when they do. I tried smiling on the artists in the room, but for my action I got no reaction! They caught my glance for sure, but nothing could break the fortresses of focused minds. All I heard was sound of pencils, brushes and pens at work. Soon I figured out a way to look professional – I stared at a wall! Acting like a sculpture was the best thing I could do at that moment.

There was a small break after half an hour. Someone opened a window. Good idea, I made the room smell like a gym! I peaked onto artists’ notebooks and canvases. The artworks looked great, some people were really skilled. Interacting with anyone except the organizer felt awkward in a way that I’ve never experienced before. People seemed shy, talking in a low voice and not very interested in having any conversation with me. Were they shy about their artworks? Was I making them uncomfortable? What if I was the naked elephant in the room?

Being the only naked person in the room felt exciting. At this point I have zero shame about my body. I’m still trying to lose weight from the first lockdown, but I was also proud to display my work in progress. I had time think about my next poses while posing. Some of them turned out terrible, I looked like an old tired lady. But it wasn’t so bad from different angles! I was actually quite tired. Soft piano music in the background lead me to a state of deep relaxation. I was very close to falling asleep towards the end of the session. My leg and arm had fallen asleep long time ago. Unfortunately, my book was not very useful for keeping me awake either. Damn, I should have brought something more uplifting than psychology!

And just like that, it was all over. It took me a while to put my winter layers on and when I returned from the back room, most of the artists were already gone. They praised me for keeping the poses very still. None of them even remotely resembled young Leonardo DiCaprio, but

Below I present some pictures of the final pieces. Cover your eyes, children!