Victimless Leather Jacket

Wow! Shira's post on the "body bread" reminded me of an art project I encountered a year or so ago. Produced by the Tissue Culture & Art Project, the little tan colored blob in the round-bottom lab flask is a "victimless leather jacket." They have grown a layer of immortalized cell lines on top of a polymer matrix (to give it a fetching jacket shape). The layer of tissue is alive. Their intent is not to create a new kind of leather for us to make adorable little bags and shoes out of - rather, the project creators want us to think about our use of flesh (specifically animal flesh) for consumer products and how we might exploit other living beings.

At the risk of sounding irreverent - I must admit - when I first saw this image, I thought it was a little piece of fried chicken!