Victimless Leather facts for kids

Victimless Leather is a special jacket that was grown in a lab! It's not made from animal skin in the usual way. Instead, it's a test project, like a prototype, for a jacket grown from tiny living cells. These cells grow into a layer of tissue, which is supported by a jacket-shaped material made of plastic-like stuff called a polymer.

This project is part of something bigger called the Tissue Culture & Art Project. The artists behind it are growing a leather jacket without harming or killing any animals. They want people to think about where their clothes come from. By making a "semi-living" jacket, they ask us to consider if it's right to wear parts of dead animals. They also make us think about our connection to living things that have been changed by science.

The Tissue Culture & Art Project

The SymbioticA website explains their work. It says they are an art lab that studies and works with life sciences. The artists use living tissue to create new, complex things. These creations can live outside a body, making them "semi-living." Their projects make us think about life itself, who we are, and how humans connect with other living things and nature. They also explore the ethical questions around creating partial life and what this kind of technology might mean for the future.

Other Cool Projects

Besides Victimless Leather, the Tissue Culture & Art Project has other interesting sub-projects:

• NoArk – This project is like a modern Noah's Ark. It's a collection of cells and tissues from many different living things. They all grow together inside a special container. The artists say NoArk helps us understand biology that mixes what we know with what's new.
• Worry Dolls – These are seven modern versions of Guatemalan Worry dolls. They were made from special plastics that can break down. Then, skin, muscle, and bone cells were added to them. The cells grew inside a special machine, slowly replacing the plastic. This created seven "semi-living" dolls.
• Disembodied Cuisine – This project is part of the "Victimless Utopia" idea, just like Victimless Leather. The artists took cells from a frog and grew them into something you could eat. They showed this "food" right next to the living frog it came from. This project makes us think about the meat industry. It asks why we kill animals for food. Growing tissue outside an animal means you can make meat while the animal stays alive and healthy.
• Extra Ear – ¼ Scale – Artists grew a quarter-sized copy of artist Stelarc's ear using human tissue. This project makes us think about how we see life now that we can change living systems. It also discusses ideas about the human body being "whole."
• The Pig Wings Project – This project explores ideas about using animal organs for humans. The artists used special science to grow pig bone tissue. They shaped it into three different sets of wings: bat wings (seen as "evil"), bird wings (seen as "good"), and pterosaur wings (seen as "neutral").

The Big Idea Behind Victimless Leather

One main goal of the "Victimless Leather" project is to explore scientific ideas. It uses art to help people understand cultural thoughts about science. The project's website points out that clothes have always protected human skin. But now, clothes also show who we are. Because of this, clothes can help us understand how humans treat other living things. The artists say they want to show clothes as a "second skin" by making this art object.

The idea of growing fake leather without killing an animal helps start a discussion. This talk is between art, science, and society. Making this jacket shows that it's possible to wear leather that isn't from a dead animal. The artists show their projects in workshops and exhibitions worldwide. They want to discuss ethical questions about bioscience and technology. The artists want people to see this project as a cultural discussion, not something to buy. They don't want to create a product for stores. Instead, they want to start important conversations. Like most of their projects, the artists care about how humans connect with other living systems. This includes both natural systems and those changed by science.

The Victimless Leather Project Up Close

Victimless leather, a photo from the TC&A webpage

How the Jacket Was Grown

The artists wanted to make a material that felt like leather using living tissue. They ended up shaping it like a jacket without any seams. They started with a special plastic-like material that can break down over time. They covered it with mouse cells called 3T3 cells. These cells form connective tissue. Then, they added human bone cells to make the "skin" layer stronger.

To create the victimless leather, the team needed a special lab environment. This environment is where semi-living things can grow. So, they grew the jacket inside a "bioreactor." This machine acts like a substitute body. The bioreactor they used was custom-made. It was based on a pump designed by Alexis Carrel and Charles Lindbergh. It had a system that automatically dripped food to the cells. The artists thought that as the plastic material broke down, a complete jacket would appear. The jacket that resulted was tiny. It was about 2 inches tall and 1.4 inches wide. It would only fit a mouse!

To make the jacket truly "victimless," they used "immortalized cell lines." These are cells that keep dividing and multiplying forever. They can be taken from an animal or human and become a never-ending resource. For example, the 3T3 mouse cells used in the project all came from a mouse that lived way back in the 1970s!

Research and Exhibitions

The "Victimless Leather" project was developed at SymbioticA. This is an art and science lab at the University of Western Australia. They also worked with Professor Arunasalam Dharmarajan and a company called Verigen. Verigen makes tissue-engineered cartilage for medical uses. The project received money from the Western Australia state government.

Where It's Been Shown

The Victimless Leather project has been shown in many places around the world:

The Artists Behind It

Oron Catts

Oron Catts was born in Helsinki, Finland, in 1967. He lives in Perth, Australia. He has worked at the University of Western Australia since 1996. He is the artistic director and co-founder of SymbioticA. He also started the Tissue Culture & Art Project. From 2000 to 2001, he was a researcher at Harvard Medical School. He has also worked with many other medical labs in different countries.

Ionat Zurr

Ionat Zurr was born in London, UK, in 1970. She also lives in Perth, Australia. She has worked at the University of Western Australia since 1996. She earned her PhD there, studying "Growing Semi-Living Art." Ionat is good at making videos and working with biological and digital images. She is an assistant professor and academic coordinator at SymbioticA. She is also a co-founder of the Tissue Culture & Art Project. From 2000 to 2001, she was a researcher at Harvard Medical School.

Thinking About Consumption

The Victimless Leather project also makes us think about how we consume things. It highlights that there are often hidden impacts in everything we buy. Sometimes, it's hard to tell what causes harm and what helps. For example, the French actress Brigitte Bardot was strongly against hunting animals for their skin or for fun.

However, some cultures see things differently. For example, an Inuit person hunts a seal. They use every part of the animal for their survival. This is a basic resource for them.

Similar to these ideas, there's growing interest in making artificial meat. This is because of concerns about the livestock industry. Raising animals for food can cause health and environmental problems. A 2006 report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said that raising livestock is a big cause of serious environmental issues. These include soil damage and water pollution. Also, animals produce a lot of methane gas, which adds more greenhouse gases to the air than transportation does.