A collection of leather bags using one full elk hide- including head, ear, leg and belly. Putting the animal origin into focus, where nature meets the beautifully grotesque. Leather is dead animal skin. We sometimes forget that touching leather is to handle a former living being’s hide.
An exploration starting from a local hunter in the North of Sweden and ending in handmade bags in the Netherlands.
Each step of the making is transparent and leaves the material recognizable as what it is – precious skin.

All pieces are vegetable tanned elk leather from Tärnsjö Garveri, Tärnsjö, Sweden.
The elks were hunted by Ulf Eliasson during the annual hunting season in Hoting, North Sweden. Sweden has the world’s highest density of elk with a population of one quarter of a million. The elk numbers are controlled through hunting, almost 300 000 Swedes are hunters in a population of 9 million in total. The elk fur is usually discarded in the forrest.