Hundreds of people who made an exhibtion of themselves last summer when they stripped off for a nude art project were reunited yesterday at its unveiling. Olivia Richwalrd, one of the daring models, reports.

You think you are not going to recognise someone when you've only seen them naked. This is not the case.

There were plenty of familiar faces at the Baltic art gallery, in Gateshead, yesterday as many of the 1,700 people who walked nude through the streets of Newcastle turned out for the opening of Spencer Tunick's exhibition.

Last July, I was one of those who volunteered to pose in the buff as Mr Tunick photographed us on Gateshead's Millennium Bridge, along the Quayside and below the Sage.

The resulting exhibition, which runs until March 26, is staged on the second floor of the contemporary art gallery, which is a converted flour mill.

The Baltic, with its minimalist elegance, is a stunning setting for a naked exhibition.

The floorboards there are as bare as the bodies in Mr Tunick's pictures, and the great glass elevators that scale the side of the old mill let you see outside and in.

Hosting the photoshoot was a major coup for the North-East. The spectacle of 1,700 bare bums created a tide of publicity, raising the profile of the region to an international stage.

Volunteer Colin Harrison, 46, from Sunderland, said: "This is a really nice change for the North-East.People think it is all Coronation Street, but this gives us a chance to show what we have up here," he said, as he admired a picture of himself, immortalised on a giant mural depicting a sea of intertwined bodies.

Last July, it was the tattoos, tan-lines and goosebumps that grabbed my attention. Yesterday, the volunteers were hidden under high heels, tailored jackets and camera phones.

The exhibition includes the giant mural, half a dozen photographs and a video of the installation.

But yesterday, it was the photographer himself, who was the star attraction.

"I think this exhibition is beautiful and humble and I can't believe how many people have turned up today," said Mr Tunick, who had travelled from New York.

Stuart Greig, 30, had come from Edinburgh with his wife and daughter, who both volunteered last summer.

"I am trying not to look too closely," he said, "I probably would have done it myself if my daughter wasn't taking part. The big mural reminds me of the killing fields, it's like life and death."

Mr Tunick, who is rather eccentric, likes to think of his prone volunteers as sleeping rather than dead. And before I left the exhibition, he took me to one side and told me about his plans to cover 50 naked Belgians in liquid white chocolate.