Who is Marisa Papen? Belgian model who posed naked near Jerusalem’s Western Wall revealed
- Model Marisa Papen sparked outrage when she posed nude by the Western Wall
- She said that the shoot took place in May 2018, on Israel's Independence Day
- Papen was famously arrested in Egypt in 2017, when she posed naked in Luxor
The photographs of Marisa Papen completely naked on a rooftop overlooking the Western Wall in Jerusalem have sparked outrage from the holy site’s chief rabbi.
Israel is in the midst of celebrating its 70th year, and Papen revealed that she actually had the photograph taken on May 14, Israel’s Independence Day.
‘While the rest of Jerusalem was celebrating, I was enjoying the afternoon sun on a rooftop after a morning of running around in the desert - capturing our last frames of the trip,’ Papen wrote on her blog post entitled ‘The Wall of Shame’.
In the same post, Papen revealed that she wanted to ‘push the boundaries of religion and politics even further’.
Model Marisa Papen sparked outrage when she posed nude by the Western Wall in Jerusalem
She went on to say that the pictures were taken by Mathias Lambrecht during a three-day trip through Israel.
As well as the photograph of her posing completely nude with the Western Wall in the background, other pictures include her straddling a flagpole waving the Israeli flagpole and posing topless in the Dead Sea.
The Rabbi of the Western Wall and the Holy Sites of Israel, Shmuel Rabinovitch, said it was an ‘embarrassing, serious and saddening incident, which undermines the sanctity of the place and the feelings of those who visit it’.
The photograph outraged people particularly because it omits the Dome of the Rock and the Temple Mount, holy sites for both Jews and Muslims, leading to people accusing Papen of wanting to avoid offending Muslim people.
The model said that the photoshoot took place in May 2018, on Israel's Independence Day
However, she told The Times of Israel that the ‘angle was not deliberate. It was just way better artistically’.
This is not the first time Papen’s modelling and photography has caused controversy. Here is all you need to know about her.
Who is Marisa Papen?
Marisa Papen is a Belgian model that is known for posing naked, sometimes controversially.
She is from Flanders, Belgium and describes herself as a ‘free-spirited, wild-hearted expressionist’.
She describes her work as ‘a naked form of freedom where masks are torn off and thrown in the ocean’.
‘It's my goal to take you with me to my own world, the "Island" as I'm labeling it. It is a place where people are part of Nature itself. Where they shouldn't be afraid to express who they really are. Where they stay true to their own instinct. Where you can be authentic pure, and uncorrupted by society.’
Papen attracted international attention when she and Australian photographer Jesse Walker travelled to Egypt and staged naked shoots at the country’s most famous landmarks.
Papen and Walker bribed patrolmen by Giza’s temples and got arrested in Luxor by the temple complex of Karnak, where they were hiding from the guards after closing time.
They were held in an Egyptian prison for 24 hours before finally being released.
After the Luxor stunt, Papen went to Ethiopia to walk naked with an isolated tribe.
Papen said: 'They have their own customs and beliefs, their own beauty-standards, their own religion, living life in harmony with nature and the spirit world.
'You may say, they are totally different than we are. But to me they are, what we once were. In touch with nature, a part of nature, immensely grateful and respectful towards it.'
At the end of 2017, just months after her arrest in Egypt, Papen posed nude to raise awareness and money for wild animals in Africa.
Ms Papen said: 'In Congo they do not promote safaris like they do, for example, in South Africa.
'The government does not care very much what happens with the flora and fauna, as there is little profit to be made out of it.'
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