An art performance directed by Mainline:RUS/Fr.CA/DE performed by Berlin-based artist Eliza Ozolite, exploring the preconditioned life of animal skins. Hosted by Voo Store, the event took place during Gallery Weekend in Berlin, presenting a sustainable concept of reusing materials.

Leather is an important fabrication within everyone’s wardrobe, used for classic and timeless staple pieces. The industrial and technical success, as well as global trading, has changed and therefore harms our environment and skin resources - the animals. Those skins lost their face and value.

Being mindful and responsible for the heritage and production of those raw materials was the key starting point of introducing leather to Mainline’s practice. Mainline’s ethos has been exemplified by the work with deadstock fabrications and since AW20, upcycled leather. By recontextualising a material’s initial purpose and value, the potential that lies beyond the limits of the societal cliché of unwanted furniture gets unveiled and activated.

Materials that can survive through centuries are a sign of viability - the sophisticated craft that comes with it. Leather has a strong association with safety and protection, which contradicts cruelty and brutality from where it’s sourced.

During the performance, the furniture got skinned step by step until the structure of the sofa has been exposed.