Friday, May 9, 2008

Mouse Jacket Grown, Euthanized In Museum Lab

In one of the odder stories we've spotted in some time, an installation called "Victimless Leather" was on display at NY's MoMA. The piece was actually a living jacket crafted from mouse embryonic stem cells, fed nutrients through tubes. But after five weeks, it grew too large for its containment flask and had to be killed.

The exhibit's curator cut the coat off from nutrition and it died thereafter. But the decision haunted her.
I've always been pro-choice and all of a sudden I'm here not sleeping at night about killing a coat...That thing was never alive before it was grown.

Personally, it's the image of a pulsating living rat coat that's going to keep me from sleeping. Did anyone see the exhibit? [The Art Newspaper via boingboing]

No comments: