Bristol butcher's chicken skins turned into art
It will take Pak Butchers in Easton, which distributes halal meat, many weeks to supply the skins.
Artist Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva has been commissioned to exhibit her We Are Shadows piece at the London Metropolitan University.
The Macedonia-born 36-year-old has a reputation for producing art using animals, however it is the first time she has worked with chicken skins.
The butchers in St Mark's Road, Easton, which is owned by city councillor Abdul Malik, would normally throw the skins away.
The 3,000 skins will be cleaned, dried and dipped in chemicals to preserve them before being stitched together to produce 12 metre (39 foot) by five metre (16 foot) wall hanging.
Elpida has lived in the UK since 1992 since migrating here from the war-torn former Yugoslavia. She normally lives in Brighton but is currently living in Gloucester while working on this piece.
She said: “I was really pleased to find a butcher willing to provide me with enough chicken skins. I'm currently picking them up from the shop once a week and have currently got about 800 sewn together.
“The exhibition will be in London's East End, an area renowned as being home to various generations of immigrants.
“Being an immigrant myself I'm only too aware that below the surface of what is celebrated as 'multi-cultural' exist communities that are living with the realities of loss, struggle and conflict. This exhibition will try to represent that.”
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