In 2011, Dutch bio-artist Jalila Essaïdi created an artificial skin that rivaled the U.S. military’s invention of bulletproof vests made of synthetic spider silk. Part still exhibit, part live performance, Save Your Own Skin is a thought exhibition, movement and dialogue piece in response to this notion of “bullet-proof skin.”
“It’s a saying, but it is also meant literally in my case,” Tanja London, writer and director of the project, said. “So it’s basically three little iterations of how we actually try to do that in different ways…we sort of have different strategies to protect ourselves.”
Taking place in a small shop space outside of the Salt Lake City Main Public Library, each performance aspect of the project involves London using her body and voice to comment on the relationship between military innovation and cultural vulnerability in this art.