Images of a miniature leather-like jacket, grown as a living layer of cultured mouse and human cells on a biodegradable polymer matrix, captured imaginations across the globe when they first appeared in art and scientific publications.

“Victimless leather” was conceived and realised by Oron Catts and his colleagues at the University of Western Australia. The astounding project was deliberately designed to confront people with the moral implications of wearing leather. It also questioned the complex relationships that now exist between living systems.

“The most interesting, radical and extreme shifts in what is going on with life are happening in laboratories,” emphasises Catts, Director of SymbioticA, a world-first art and science collaborative research laboratory which has developed “victimless leather” as part of a series of projects. Based in the University’s School of Anatomy and Human Biology, SymbioticA’s work pushes the boundaries of creativity and scientific possibilities. “We are the first place where artists and scientists have collaborated in the context of artists having institutional access to life science laboratories,” explains Catts. “SymbioticA is about getting artists into laboratories to engage with the place where perhaps there is the most radical shift in our perceptions of life.”

The idea for the laboratory grew in 1996, after Catts graduated from a design degree course. His final year thesis debated how design and biotechnology could interact and raised the issue of whether society was now treating life like a raw material to be engineered and designed.

Catts was particularly interested in the concept of tissue engineering and approached University of WA scientist, Professor Miranda Grounds. As a result, the Tissue Culture and Art Project was born and Catts then established an artistic research residency that became SymbioticA. The project has since achieved a number of highlights, including victimless meat.

“We were the first place to grow and eat a piece of cultured meat – it was grown in a dish as opposed to on an animal. We grew our first tissue-engineered steak in 2000,” he recalls. “In 2004, we were invited to show a piece in the context of a textile and fashion show and expanded this idea to grow victimless leather. The idea was to try TO develop tissue-engineering techniques to grow leather-like material from cells and tissues, as opposed to taking it directly from an animal. We grew the jacket in a show called The Space Between in Perth and it was also shown at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York.”

In 2006, SymbioticA became the first institution to offer an academic degree in biological arts and the following year the project won a major international art and new technology award, a Golden Nica award, at the world’s largest art and technology festival. The award recognised SymbioticA’s work in uniting artistic engagement and emerging technologies.

“We run workshops all over the world and our work is currently going to the National Arts Museum of China in Beijing,” says Catts.

“In terms of artists and designers working with new technologies, Australia is one of the world’s leaders. The challenge is to develop new questions, be willing to take risks and have an open-ended research agenda,” concludes Catts, who sees infinite scope for art with a biological bent.